Scheherazade
by ZephyrHawk
Summary: Heroes. Monsters. Villains. Witches. True Love. Not just your basic, average, everyday, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, ho-hum fairy tale.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: **This story is set in the middle of season 4 of _Doctor Who_, and necessarily precludes the existence of "Journey's End"and related episodes. It is also a rather strange crossover with the graphic novel _Fables. _If you are a _Fables_ fan, you should know that the majority of this fiction takes place during the story arc of "March of the Wooden Soldiers," although an obvious nod of acknowledgement must be given to _1,001 Nights of Snowfall, _as well. If you are not a _Fables_ aficionado, whatever are you waiting for? But in all seriousness, you need only know three things about the comic in order to understand the gist of this story: (1) the characters of fairy tale and myth exist and (2) quite a number of them live in New York City because (3) they were forced to flee their original Homelands by the evil Adversary. I hope you enjoy.

**Musical Accompaniment-** "Your Wildest Dreams"- The Moody Blues; "End of the Innocence"- Don Henley

**Scheherazade**

_Wherever is love and loyalty, great purposes and lofty souls, even though in a hovel or a mine, there is fairyland._ ~ Charles Kingsley

She clearly does not belong.

Not in the elegant flowing silks that hang in demure, yet curiously captivating, curves about her body. Not in the climate which has caused her pert, ivory-skinned nose to redden and peel and her forehead to bead with sweat. Not in the attitude of deference and respect which she is obviously trying to adopt towards him. The outer lands have strange notions about women, about their place in the universe. Some go so far as to effect equality, but that is right foolishness. And she is clearly the fruit of such foolishness. Such things only serve to make a woman forget that she is intended to be an object of beauty and grace for the world to gaze upon with wonder; yes even so lovely a flower as this one may forget.

The veil is meant to hide her hair, but several golden strands escape their confinement as she makes her ungainly obeisance. Gold like wheat in the sun. Gold like the desert horizon after a sandstorm. So rare, this fairness of skin and hair, in this realm of dusky complexions and midnight dark tresses trending to blue in their purity.

She makes a halting attempt at a proper address, stumbling through the phrases as though they were knee deep sand banks. Her Arabic is atrocious, but her accent is lovely and exotic and clips the ends of her words off in a pleasant burr reminiscent of the voice his harem women adopt when they are trying to gain his attentions.

Of course, she is not meant for the harem.

No, she is too foreign. Too foreign by far, and he would be a fool ten times over to introduce that sort of influence into his ladies' quarters. These pale and fragile features, this lovely gilded carpet of hair, these hide an unseen danger beneath them. And though he yearns, wishes even now to take her, before the meal has been properly set, he knows that he will only have this chance once; only one night of this particular pleasure. And so, he composes himself and looks forward to drawing it out as long as he can.

She has not moved since she lowered herself before him, and he bids her rise. She glances up at him, her knees and palms still pressed to the rich embroidered carpet beneath her, a look of combined fear and confusion crossing her face. Realizing she does not understand, he addresses her in English.

"The inhabitants of the other lands, they often speak this language. You know it, yes?" She nods, clearly unsure if he desires a verbal response, and if so whether in English or Arabic. "Sit up, golden one," he says, "For a man does not stand on ceremony with his intended."

She raises herself from the floor and sits back on her heels. She composes her white hands against the blue cloth flowing over her knees, and regards him with what looks like great interest. He claps, and a phalanx of servants enter carrying a low table, several sitting cushions, cleaning implements, and bowl upon heaping bowl of various sweets and savories. They arrange all between himself and the girl, as he turns to the slave with the bowl and ewer and allows his hands to be salved and dried. She watches him all the while and when the slave kneels beside her, does as he has done. Not just a pretty face, this one. She pays attention. That is good.

After the meal is tabled, the attendants leave them in comparative privacy; although twenty will come running at his word or gesture. She waits for him to take his food first, as is proper, and after he has lifted the first of the sweetmeats to his lips, reaches a tentative hand over the table to take some for herself. For a while they eat like this. Hand to mouth, silent. His eyes never cease to range with open desire over her body. Her eyes, just as dark, but with calculation, observe the path of his own. Abruptly he stops, a delicate concoction of rice and grape leaves paused hovering above the bowl from which it has been removed.

"You know why you are here?" he asks.

"I am…to serve you…my…my Lord." Her voice is tentative, but not with fear. She does not like the idea of serving a man, even one so great as he. He smiles. Spirit such as this is lovely in the young. A flame so bright it hurts the eyes, so quick to burn to ashes.

"You are to be my wife," he says, popping the confection into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully for a moment before going on. "What think you of that."

"My…Lord…has many wives."

He laughs. "I have many mistresses, yes, only one wife." That brings a shadow of confusion to her features. He wonders what her eunuch jailers have told her. What the other women who wait their turn among the cushioned apartments set aside for their use have told her. Wonders what she has understood with her poor grasp of his language. He wonders, and desire burns anew between his loins. Patience, he admonishes himself, a dish so rare as this must be savored but slowly.

"I…I do not understand." No, you would not, he thinks, not unkindly. She is a stranger to his country, and his ways are counted strange even among his countrymen.

"Tonight," he explains, "You will be my wife. You will entertain me as such. Tomorrow, you will be no longer, it is as simple as that." She seems to grasp that, and her cheeks grow impossibly paler. She sets her hand against her leg, a bit of food still trapped between her fingers. He thinks to call her attention to it, it would be a shame to damage such a lovely dress as she is wearing, but she holds it carefully and not a drop of sauce drips onto her skirts.

"Then…" she swallows heavily, evidently steeling herself, "Then I am here for my Lord to take his pleasures with me."

He laughs again at her. He cannot help it, her innocence and confusion is endearing. How little they must teach the women of the other worlds of how to behave. As if such things should be discussed before the meal is finished, before dessert is even properly served. "Yes, my pale dove," he says, smiling kindly. "But there are many pleasures to be enjoyed in this world. Among them food and drink. See here," he waves at the table set before them, "The best my kitchens can prepare. A wedding feast for two. And tea to drink unless," and here he cannot help but wrinkle his nose in distaste, "You would prefer wine. It is against the teachings, but for foreign visitors, we may make an exception."

She shakes her head ponderously, as if in deep thought. "So…after dinner…"

"After," he cuts her off, and there is a new tone to his voice. A promise and a threat all in one. "But for now eat. Drink. And enjoy what pleasures we may find in the here and now." She does not stir for some time, then slowly, as if moving through a thick paste, she raises the near forgotten piece of food to her mouth. He smiles at her encouragingly and proceeds with his own dinner.

For a time there is silence in the great chamber, the only sound the great sweep of the palm fans as the slave boys make a futile attempt to waft cooler air about the room. When he has taken his fill of one dish, but is still half-heartedly picking at what remains, he turns the balance of his consideration upon her.

"Do you sing?" he asks hopefully.

"I…I can," she says, and he doubts anyone who stutters as much as she (and in her own language too!) could ever be expected to carry a tune.

"Dance? Play any instruments of note?" She shakes her head. "My dear river lily, you have not much to recommend you then." He sees her eyes widen in fear, and she is right to be concerned. If she can offer no other entertainment….well, he may be forced to move on to more carnal enjoyments earlier than he would like. "Is there anything you _can_ do?"

She has to think about that for a moment. "I can talk."

He snorts. What good is a woman's talk? Baubles and perfumes and palace intrigues. He has no need for such things, nor any interest.

"I…" and here she seems to loose her nerve. He thinks that she will crumple, then, that she will fall back into silence, or perhaps sobs, but she surprises him. Finding strength from he knows not where, she continues, "May I tell you a story, my…my Lord."

"A story?" he asks, intrigued. "What kind of story?"

"A true one." She is meeting his eyes now. She knows better than to threaten a challenge to one such as him, but he gets the distinct impression she has no intention of backing down on her request.

"Are not all the stories true? The old ones, at least, and the great ones?"

That throws her off, and she glances down to where her hands are folded in her lap. "My Lord is right…or so I'm beginning to believe, anyway." There is a certain wryness to her tone, a dry amusement that intrigues him.

"What makes your story more true than others, little dove, more worthy of the telling?"

When she glances up at him her eyes are dark, and this time he almost feels the challenge in them. Spirit, yes, and beauty.

"Because it happened to me, my Lord. It is my story."

This time his laughter rings through the high arched ceilings of the antechamber. "Now that I would like to hear, little dove, the story of how you came to my lands. The guards say you appeared from nowhere like a djinn. They say you glow with the light of the sun at noon, that you can call the winds and command the storm. I wonder how they imagine one so precious and small as yourself capable of such destructive force; but no matter, the night is young and our meal is far from finished. Pray tell me your tale and we will indulge in its pleasures for a while."

She looks to him to see if he is being honest in his encouragement, and when he waves to her indicating that she should go on, takes a deep, steadying breath, and speaks.

"I must start at the beginning." He refrains from making some comment that it was certainly preferable to her starting at the end; but then he recalls that many of his visitors from Ionia told stories that began in the middle, then slipped back to the beginning before winding their way to the finale. Perhaps this is how she is used to telling tales and she is making an attempt to adjust to his own culture. He holds his admonishment in check, and she begins.

"Once there was a young girl who lived a very ordinary life. She lived in a very poor home, with many other poor people living close by. Her father had died, you see, when she was just a baby and her mother had raised her all alone. They could barely afford to live even as they did. So, the young girl thought that if she took a job in the town she might be able to make enough money that they could move out of their poor home to someplace nicer, and maybe things would be better." She squares her shoulders, relaxing into the rhythm of her tale. "Then one day, while she was at work, the girl was attacked by a mob of mannequins."

"A what?" he brakes in. "I am sorry, my dove, but I do not know that word."

Her brow creases in thought. ""S…it's like a statue, yeah? Only this one could move and there were…oh, I dunno…a whole bunch of them. Twenty at least." He tries to picture what she is describing. He has heard of the like before. There are neighboring tribes, ones who share the same god, but with different beliefs, who have stories of such creatures. Golem, they are called. They are supposed to be horrible.

"Anyway, all these…these walkin' statues started attacking the girl. She thought that she was dead for sure, but then…" she trails off, a dreamy look crossing her face. "Then she felt someone take her hand. It was this man…this strange man with bright blue eyes and ears that looked two sizes too large for his face. And he took her hand and he said one thing to her. 'Run,' he said, and she ran."

The last is said with a fervor that appears to bring warmth into her heart. It is hard to understand her, sometimes; he is not all that conversant in her language and her accent appears to get heavier as she delves deeper into her memories, but he is already entranced. The young girl, of course, must be her, if this is her story. But who is the mysterious man, the one who took her hand. There is such a taboo against that sort of interaction in his country, he wonders if it is the same where she is from. Certainly, the memory of the man taking her hand has caused her cheeks to darken in color and her breathing to hitch. Fascinated, he leans forward and places his entire attention upon her.

"They ran together," she continues, "And the moving statues came chasing after them. And the man, he set the building on fire and it destroyed the statues, and the two of them barely escaped with their lives." Her look turns subdued, then. "The girl thanked him for saving her and asked him who he was, but the man wouldn't tell her. He said that he was dangerous and she was better off not knowing him; that she should stay far, far away." She looks up, her eyes upon him, but he can tell she is not seeing anything before her in the room. She is seeing this man, the man from the story. "He told her that he could feel the turn of the earth, and when he touched her hand she felt it too."

"It terrified her," she whispers.

"Was he a djinn?"

She blinks at him with surprise, as if only then remembering she is not alone in the room. "A…you mean, like, a genie?" He wrinkles his nose at the bastardization, but nods. He has heard the term used before by those from lands afar. "No," she says, and bites at her lower lip in concentration. "No he wasn't a…a genie. Or…well…maybe he was. 'Cause genies live in little spaces, like lamps and stuff, right, that are bigger on the inside? And they fly and grant wishes and-"

"The djinni," he says, instructing her, "Are gods of old. They are great and terrible. But, they are not like the One God, for they walk among men. They are temperamental and inconstant and imperfect." Her eyes are wide with amazement and he again feels his desire throb through him at the thought of her naiveté. Here, he must teach her the things even the youngest girls of his kingdom grow up knowing. "They burn with the smokeless fires of the desert. It is bad luck to find a djinn, for as wonderful and powerful as they may be, they carry death with them everywhere."

His explanation sobers her, and she nods solemnly. "Yes, then," she says, "I guess he was a…a djinn." And he knows that this will be a sad tale in the end, because stories of the djinni never end well for those who find them. Not unless the finder can trick the djinn into doing its bidding, and bind the demigod to their will. But then, what woman could ever do that?

"He was a djinn, and he disappeared. But the girl…she didn't know…she thought he was just a man…a man who saved her like some white knight out of a fairy tale. She couldn't just forget about him. She went looking for him. And when she found him, she found the living statues as well."

"The Golem?" he asks, clarifying.

"Yeah," she shrugs, "I guess. The Golem weren't all dead. See, the djinn had destroyed a whole bunch of them with his fire, but he hadn't destroyed their source. The one who was controlling them."

She looks at him, as if seeking his approval for something. "I see," he says, feeling the need to prompt her, "Go on."

She does. Her story is certainly strange. More than once he requires that she pause in it and try to explain some word he does not know or couch some concept in terms that he can understand. The courses come and go, a seemingly endless procession of servants in an out, but neither she nor he pay them any heed, too bound up in the recounting to spare a thought to anything else. By the end, he is completely enraptured in the story of the blue eyed djinn and the golden haired girl. When she gets to the part where the djinn asks the girl to travel with him, he wants to shout to her not to do it. One should never go with a djinn inside of his domain, or else one would certainly never return. But at the same time, he finds himself saddened when she tells the djinn no and decides to stay with her poor mother and her hapless suitor.

Then, when the djinn appears again and repeats his request, he actually laughs aloud; approving of the girl's final choice. Of course, he thinks, a djinn is dangerous. Too dangerous to ever trust, but really, who ignores a chance to live in one of the great stories. No, there is only one choice to that. You may be in a djinn's story, and therefore the end is sure to be bad, but at least you are in the tale. You will live for as long as it is told, and that is far longer than any normal man or woman lives. He applauds the decision and her story. It had been well told.

"My dove," he says, "That truly was a tale worth hearing." She smiles, and he can tell she is truly pleased by his reaction. It is a perfectly lovely smile she has. The best feature in a face full of exotic planes and angles which, if not ascribing to his country's more traditional standards of beauty, are still undeniably exquisite. "However, I cannot help but notice, you have failed to tell the story of how you came to my lands."

She shakes her head at him, but continues to smile. "My Lord, I said this was my story. But as you know, one story often leads to the next, and then the next, and on until the end. I have come to these lands only recently and at the end of my various journeys."

"You have other such stories then? Other true adventures?"

Her smile is gigantic. Enigmatic. Breathtaking.

"My Lord, I have a thousand such tales."

He shakes his head at her, half in disbelief and half in disappointment. "Then why did you not tell the tale of your most recent voyage to this place? Is it not what I asked for?"

"My Lord, I said I had to start at the beginning. My coming here began with the story I told. Were it not for that story, for the appearance of the djinn and his magic box, I would never have come here to serve my Lord's pleasures."

He looks at her, then, with new appreciation. To think she has gone through so much, this beautiful flower; it is hard to fathom. That there can be more to her story is even more difficult to believe. She seems so fragile a bloom, he feels the strange desire to place her in a pot on a shaded verandah where she would be safe and lovingly tended all her days. But her smile, her smile is not weak or drooping. Her eyes are like polished mahogany, dark and strong. Her hair, that beautiful golden cloud peaking out from behind her veil, glows in the light streaming in through the curtains.

The light.

"It seems," he says in a surprised drawl, "That you have talked the night away. Look there, the morning sun peaks through the casement." She follows his gaze, and though he would not have believed it possible, her face lights up even more at the prospect of feeling the sunlight dance across it once again. After a moment, she turns back to him, her face composed and serious, remembering.

"My…my Lord did not take his pleasures."

He cannot tell if she is embarrassed or relieved or frightened. A little of all of them, he decides, and reaches a hand out towards her face. She flinches just slightly at his caress, his warm dry palm pressing against the smooth apple of her cheek. It is the first time they have touched in the long night. "There are many pleasures," he murmurs. "And time enough to explore them all."

He drops his hand. She remains frozen before him, trembling. "You will come again tomorrow evening and take dinner with me." She says not a word, merely nods in assent. That is fine, it is not a question anyway, and does not require response. He stands, and she waits on her knees. He glances again at her lovely features, so much brighter and healthier looking in the beams of early morning, before turning away and striding purposefully towards his bedchamber. Stopping halfway, he turns his head over his shoulder and says, "Perhaps then you may finish your tale."


	2. Chapter 2

Donna picked herself up off of the metal grating and leaned heavily on the cushioned railing. Her tailbone ached murderously from where it had made contact with the floor and her hands were scraped raw. "Honestly," she moaned, "Is it gonna do that every time?"

"You know you love it," answered a disembodied voice from the other side of the console where the Doctor lay sprawled in a corresponding collapse. Leaning slightly to peer about the column, she watched as he raised himself smoothly into a sitting position, not unlike a puppet being drawn up by its strings. A boyish smile split his face.

Donna snorted in derision. "You keep thinking that spaceman." She rolled her eyes towards the closed doors leading outside. "So," she said, turning her body towards the exit and enjoying the way the short skirt twirled about her thighs, "We're here are we?" It was as much a statement as it was a question. Of course they were here. But whether the here they were, was the here they intended to be…well, that was another matter entirely. Donna had been at this business long enough to know that the bumpier the ride, the less likely she was to enjoy the visit.

She really was looking forward to enjoying herself this trip. She had even dressed for the part. The Doctor had promised her flappers and gangsters and speakeasies, and he'd darn well better deliver after that fiasco with the slime and the giant eggs and the…no, never mind…they had agreed to never mention it again. The point was, she had spent what felt like a lifetime searching through the giant TARDIS wardrobe looking for something appropriate for the 1920's. Something posh. Something that decidedly did _not_ make her behind look overlarge, and she had eventually found it. A simple black dress with a flared skirt and thick straps. There was scarlet piping along the hem and the bust line which gave it all just a bit of flash and brought out the color of her hair. She had done her red locks up in a high twist and accented it with a showy feather and rhinestone combination she'd found rattling around in a drawer. A long necklace of bright red beads completed the outfit.

She felt like a moll, whatever that was. What it wasn't was a temp secretary from Chiswick, and that was all she cared about.

"Right!" The Doctor leapt to his feet and raced for the TARDIS doors. His artfully styled bangs whipped crazily against his forehead as they raced to catch up with his exuberant bounding. He hadn't lost his smile. Nor had he bothered to change from his ever present blue pinstripes. For once, at least, Donna thought, he'd be somewhat in line with current fashion. "Out there," he jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the doors behind them. "Is a brave new world."

"I thought you said we were going to Earth," she groused in reply, folding her arms.

"We are," he said, his smile turning mysterious. "Post World War I Earth. Pre World War II Earth. The Golden Twenties. The Roaring Twenties." Donna couldn't help it, she felt her excitement growing like a child's balloon being rapidly inflated in her stomach. It happened every time, and he knew just what buttons to push to get her adrenaline flowing. "Mobsters," he continued, "Silent movies. The Charleston. Prohibition and F. Scott Fitzgerald. In Russia, the Soviet Union is in its infancy. In Egypt, Howard Carter is putting a crowbar to the door of King Tut's Tomb. Across the world, women are fighting for, and achieving, the right to vote. And right here in New York City-" Donna gasped, despite herself -"George Gershwin is penning _Rhapsody in Blue_ and thinking of a city come alive with music." He placed one hand dramatically on the door handle.

"Well then what're we waiting for," she asked rather loudly. Waving her hand meaningfully towards the exit she continued, "Let's get crackin'."

"As you wish," he said with a smile, and pulled the door wide. She rushed out into what looked like a dingy back alley. Turning slightly, she saw the light at the end of the tunnel and went barreling off towards the street. Emerging out onto the sidewalk she inhaled deeply and took in the strange surroundings which included old-timey store fronts, ornate street lamps covered in a thick green patina, and a sporty blue Toyota Prius humming merrily at the curb.

'One of these things,' Donna's inner monologue chimed, 'Is not like the other one; one of these things just doesn't belong.'

She heard the scuff of the Doctor's trainers upon the pavement and swung to face him. "Nineteen twenties," she started, trying, and failing, to modulate her tone, "Since when do they have bloody hybrids in the 1920s?!"

The Doctor flashed her a confused look, before glancing past to the street beyond. "Oh," he said, and, "Hmmm…." Nothing else. No stuttered apologies. No painfully complex explanations. He looked up and down the street with unabashed curiosity, scratching at the back of his neck in a rather embarrassed manner.

"Well?!" she prompted.

"Donna do you have any concept of just how massive time is?" he replied magnanimously. "No, of course you don't. You can't, not possible to comprehend the massive scale of time with your tiny human brain, but trust me on this, it's huge. Giagantic. Unimaginably big, big, big. Why, if you put the entire existence of the earth from glowing ball of molten rock to explosion via Sol supernova on a timeline representing all time as we know it in this universe, it wouldn't even register a flicker." The Doctor seemed very impressed by his explanation, Donna was not. "And so," he continued, "You can't really complain about a paltry less than a century's worth margin of error, now can you? I mean, on a cosmic scale, we're spot on."

He smiled and Donna refused to return it. Turning on her heel, she marched back to the TARDIS, the Doctor calling after her in dismay. When she emerged from the blue police box several minutes later, wearing a long sleeved purple blouse and matching pants set off by a wide belt, the Doctor was waiting, looking suitably chastised and very, very bored. He seemed about to comment on the time it had taken for her to change into her new outfit, but she silenced him with a look.

"Ahem, right," he said, clearing his throat, "So, ready to explore New York City, then?"

Donna sighed, and slipped her arm into the Doctor's crooked elbow. His responsive beaming smile was worth the frustration of being the best mate of a half-crazy, unapologetic alien with a lousy driving record.

On television and in movies, New York is always shown as a sweeping vista of towering skyscrapers. Apparently, the Doctor and she have landed in a much different part of town. This street wouldn't look all that out of place in a small English village. The buildings were mostly of red brick. It was packed with store fronts, their painted picture widows shaded under old-fashioned striped canopies. People filled the sidewalks; parents walking with candy wielding kids, old couples strolling arm in arm. A single golden retriever trotted by with a folded newspaper gripped tightly in its jaws. Taxis rumbled slowly down the street. It was a bustling metropolis in miniature.

"You know," the Doctor said thoughtfully, "It's not like you have to go halfway across the galaxy in order to have an adventure. Why, some of the most interesting spots in the universe are right in your own backyard." He stopped before the mosaic stoop of the 'I Am The Eggman' diner. "Look here, for instance," he continued, dropping her arm and examining the menu posted prominently next to some sort of local civic election poster. He removed his glasses from his coat pocket and perched them low upon his nose. "Traditional American greasy spoon." He peered through the thick frames. "Eggs, eggs and more eggs. Well, I tell you one thing you can't find on Betelgeuse 12; eggs done 7 different ways." He turned to Donna smiling. "Hungry?"

"Not now I'm not," she replied with a smirk.

"Suit yourself," he shrugged, and they continued their way on down the street. They passed an antique store with its array of dusty old furniture and knickknacks. Beyond that was Nod's Books, a quaint little shop with a display of children's storybooks arranged artfully in the front window. Donna was beginning to get a little bored of their trek through small town America. It was nice on occasion not to have to be running for their lives from something green and slimy, but this was a little more…mundane…than even she could have hoped for.

Her eyes wandered aimlessly from the shop windows to the faces of those passing by and hell-o! Who was that!?

A suntanned man with dark wavy hair, piercing blue eyes and a matching sapphire tie was approaching them from the other direction. His cheekbones looked like they had been carved from stone, his eyebrows dark rainbows arched above his eyes. His lips seemed fuller and softer than any man's had right to be. He was dressed in a prim, professional suit that somehow, inexplicably, seemed to casually drape around his well built physique. Accompanying him was a short, rotund man carrying a black valise and adding to the overall mysterious aura which surrounded the attractive young man. His mouth quirked up into a roguish half-smile as he came up to Donna. His eyes roamed quickly down then up her body appraisingly, lingering upon her ample bosom, and Donna felt her pulse quicken and her cheeks burn in response. Passing by, she got a whiff of his cologne, a deep, musky scent that only accentuated the more subtle and indefinite scent of "male" beneath his clothes. Her whole body tingled.

The Doctor took a stutter step beside her and glanced behind them. "Did you see that?!" he asked in a stage whisper, leaning close towards Donna's ear.

"I'll say," Donna hummed in response, and added beneath her breath, "Wouldn't mind takin' that home for a little recreation."

The Doctor blinked comically at her for a moment, his head drawn back and partially cocked. Then, apparently cottoning on, "What?! No, no…I meant the other one."

Donna ignored all social convention about not making the object of their public conversation obvious, by turning to look over her shoulder at the retreating pair. The young man offered at least as good a view from behind as he had from the front, and Donna had to physically drag her eyes away from his pleasingly firm rump to regard the man following two steps in his wake. His companion was shorter and older, with paper white hair where he was not bald, and he was wearing a rather old fashioned tuxedo jacket. Donna could see the tails of the coat swinging about the backs of his knees. She had to admit that she hadn't gotten a very good look at his face, having been a bit distracted by…other matters…at the time, but he didn't seem all that interesting from the back. Except for the outfit, of course, which was a bit out of place for the sidewalks of New York, now that she gave some thought to it. His whole manner of deference toward the man pacing before him gave him the look of a butler…or perhaps a doorman (did they even have butlers in America?) and she figured he must be some hired assistant of the aristocratic, confident and downright sexy man in the lead.

The Doctor's audibly cleared throat brought her back to the present. "What about him?" she asked, turning towards the Time Lord. She shrugged unconcernedly, "Looks like some sort of servant."

The Doctor stopped dead in the middle of the path and a chubby woman with tightly curled blonde hair and wearing a pink frock that was far too frilly and childish for someone her age had to bring herself up short so as not to bump into him. The Doctor took absolutely no notice of the woman, but remained stock still, staring openmouthed at Donna. The woman made an annoyed sounding "Hmph!" and stepped around the two of them to continue on her way.

"A…a servant?!" the Doctor stuttered.

"Yeah, well, why else would he be wearing the tux?" Donna answered ably. She looked again over her shoulder, but the two men had disappeared into the crowd. When she returned her attention to the Doctor, his look had changed from shocked incredulity to one of intense consideration.

"He _was_ wearing a tux," he murmured, thoughtfully.

"'Course it could be he's on his way to a wedding or something," Donna continued, her thoughts still on the beautiful young Adonis. She sighed, "Too much to hope that one would be free." The Doctor's eyes narrowed and slid towards her. He clearly wasn't following her train of thought, so she decided to play his game for a little while until his apparently asexual alien brain caught up to the situation at hand. "Why, what was so odd about him?"

"What was odd?" the Doctor asked, the shocked look returning to his face. "_What_," he exclaimed, "Was _odd_?!" The Doctor's fingers tangled in his brown locks, his hands framing his stricken face. Donna was on the point of asking whether he'd been getting at the biscuits again when he suddenly freed his hands, stood straight, and started looking about them warily. His head swung around like a dog's when it was chasing after an elusive scent. Donna felt her heart speed up as her body automatically set itself on guard. It appeared as though the Doctor was looking for trouble…and, knowing him, he was almost certain to find some.

Eyes shifting nervously from side to side, he reached out and roughly grabbed at her elbow. With a jerk, he pulled her from the pavement and ducked into a nearby alleyway. Donna wrinkled her nose at the unpleasant stench. "Doctor," she said, breathlessly skipping over a slimy puddle of God-knows-what festering next to a brace of garbage bins, "What's gotten in to you?"

"You didn't see," he replied, not looking back at her. "This doesn't make sense."

"Quite a lot not making sense right now," she quipped. The Doctor broke into a trot and she had to jog to keep up.

"It's not that you just didn't notice," he continued, as if she hadn't said a thing, "You looked right at him, and again when you turned around. No, not even you Donna could be that distracted by a fine example of male posterior. Something is _very _wrong here!"

Donna didn't contradict him. She didn't see how anything was wrong, but then trouble did seem to hover around the Doctor like the cloud of dust that constantly engulfed that poor Pig Pen character from the funny pages. It came with the territory of traveling in the TARDIS, as did the Doctor's inevitable next reaction. Turning to her with a nearly maniacal grin he hissed through his teeth, "And I'm going to find out exactly what that something is!"

They had come to the end of the alleyway, and the Doctor silently snuck up to the corner and peered around. Donna arranged herself behind him, arms crossed in dissatisfaction. "Doctor," she said, not attempting to keep the exasperation out of her voice, "You still haven't told me what it is _you_ saw." His only reply was a shushing sound and a dismissive wave of his off hand, as he leaned farther out of the corridor and stared off down the sidewalk. Abruptly, he pulled his head back behind the edge and flattened himself up against the wall. Donna followed suit, trying not to think about the accumulation of foul smelling muck across its surface. After a few moments of seeing nothing but the Doctor's jacket and hearing nothing but their own labored breaths, Donna hazarded, "Doctor?"

He turned towards her, his eyes dark in the shade from the buildings looming close on either side. "Alien," he said.

"Been through that," she countered.

"No, not me," he replied absently, his attention turning again to the well lit sidewalk at the end of the passage. "Well, yes, me," he amended, "But I was referring to the individual in the tux."

Donna contemplated the back of the Doctor's head, which was all that he was presenting to her at the moment. "He looked pretty human to me," she said finally.

The Doctor placed one hand on the protruding corner and chanced a glance around it again. "That's what's odd," he explained. Pushing himself off the wall, he stepped out into the sunlight. Donna followed, and had to pick up her pace to match his long and purposeful strides. This street was much less crowded than the one they had just left. Instead of shops and restaurants lining the pavement, it seemed comprised mainly of apartment buildings. The few people who could be seen wandering about were clearly on domestic missions and were not to be bothered by the presence of two incongruous sight-seers. One woman passed by on the opposite side, her face almost entirely hidden behind two paper bags full of groceries. Off past the intersection, an older man walked a small terrier on a leash.

Catching up to the Doctor, Donna turned to look at him and spoke (despite the relative emptiness of the street) in a half whisper, "So what did he look like to you?"

"Dunno, actually," he replied, and skipped off the curb and into the street. He jogged diagonally across it, Donna panting in his wake, and headed for the corner of the opposite building. Leaping onto the sidewalk and nimbly sashaying around a parking meter, he continued in the same tone, "Slitheen? No, too tall. No bug eyes either."

"What?" Donna asked again, beginning to lose her patience.

"And he's not _wearing_ any skin. It's more like…like a perception filter." This last statement was uttered at a higher tone than those previous, and Donna recognized the unspoken 'Ah hah!' in his phrase. However, his tone immediately darkened as he continued, "But that's not right. A perception filter just tends to make things less…well…less. It doesn't concoct an entirely new appearance. Mind control, maybe?" He shook his head.

As they approached the brick edge of the building, the Doctor crouched over and again peeked carefully around. This time Donna followed his cue, and leaning out just beyond the point of the Doctor's shoulder, followed his gaze down the walkway. There, about a half a block away, was the attractive businessman and his faithful attendant. Their pace was resolute, but unhurried. They obviously had no inkling that they were being tailed by a 900 year old Time Lord and his red-haired sidekick. "So," Donna drew out, "He's an alien."

"Yep," the Doctor replied brightly, popping the 'p'.

"And we're gonna follow him?" The Doctor arched one meaningful eyebrow at her, as if to say, 'You have to ask?' Donna stepped around the Doctor and the corner and indicated the street before them with a wave of her hand. "Well, then, lead on, MacDuff," she commanded authoritatively.

The Doctor stood straight and joined her, his eyes fixed on the strange couple. "No one actually says that, you know."

"Of course they do," she argued, punctuating it with a sniff. "People say it all the time."

"Yes," he answered, his eyes narrowing as if with a difficult calculation, "But I meant in the play. Nowhere in _Macbeth_ does anyone actually say 'Lead on, MacDuff.'" He began to pace slowly down the boulevard in the wake of their objectives. "One of those classic misquotations that has become so prevalent in general speech that everyone just assumes it's part of the original work. Like 'The game is afoot.' Sherlock Holmes, of course, but not something that Conan Doyle ever wrote."

"Well, it's not like it matters," Donna said, matching stride comfortably beside him. "It's not like Holmes, or what have you, ever actually said much of anything." Ahead of them, the fine looking young man turned to face the door of a townhouse. With a self-conscious sweep of a hand over his perfect coiffure, he mounted the steps, the older gentleman in tow, and rapped his knuckles upon the door. "After all," she murmured, "They're only stories."


	3. Chapter 3

The next night, as soon as the tea is poured, he tells her to finish her tale.

"My Lord," she says, sounding considerably more sure of herself than she was the night before. "Should I begin where I left off?" He nods, and she adjusts herself to a more comfortable position on the cushions before starting.

"Once she was inside the magic box, the djinn asked the girl where she wanted to go; whether she-"

"Does the girl have a name?" he interrupts. She looks at him with surprise. "You cannot keep calling her 'the girl'. Clearly, she is a character in a legendary tale, and like the great Sinbad, she should have a name."

"She…she does." What, nervous now? His trembling little dove returns, how lovely.

"And what is it?"

She purses her lips together as if trying to decide what to tell him. She must know what he will do to her if she does not tell the truth. "Rose," she says finally, barely above a whisper.

"Rose," he repeats. "It is a good name." And it is. An excellent name for the precious blossom before him. It is a powerful name, as well, though she likely doesn't know it. In every place he has ever been to, in every world he has ever heard of, there is a flower called the rose. And always it is accorded among the most beautiful, the most fragrant and the most delicate of blooms. Also, incidentally, the most likely to prick with angry barbs. That kind of continuity is very compelling. "And the djinn, does he have a name as well?"

"No." She shakes her head, then, "That is to say, yes. But he never told the girl - never told Rose what his true name was."

"Then what name did Rose call him by?"

"Doctor," she answers, and he knows that is not a name in her language, it is a profession. It is not a name, but he can see from her eyes that she is not lying. He sees the truth there and…there is something about that name. Something that makes her sit a little straighter, hold her head a little higher. And he remembers, suddenly, that she has known this djinn. That it is not just a name in a story to her, but an acquaintance. Names, he knows, have power. He wonders what power a djinn's name, even one so counterfeit as that, could grant to her. Perhaps it were better she not use it again in his presence.

"Doctors, too, are powerful, for they hold the power of life and death in their hands," he admits. "Though not so much as djinni. But they are ultimately benevolent in their cause, whereas djinni are agents of chaos. No, I think it better if, in your story, we call him the Djinn. That way, we shall not forget who or what he is."

She nods her assent and continues. "Well, the Djinn, he gives the girl - I mean Rose - he gives Rose the choice of whether they travel forwards or backwards in time." She smiles at the memory. "She chose to see the future."

"To see the future," he comments, "Is dangerous." He shakes his head. "Our soothsayers often go mad from reading their futures, or those of their loved ones. They say the future is always more terrible than we could possibly imagine, though I often wonder if they speak so only to garner more followers and patrons."

"Yeah, well," she says, and her smile has turned rueful now, "This story's kinda like that. It's about the end of the world." And this time, it is his eyes that go saucer wide. She settles her pale hands against the wine colored folds of her robes, and begins.

"The Djinn took the girl…sorry, Rose, far, far into her future. Unimaginably far. So far that there was nothing left of Rose's home. All her friends were dead and all her friends' descendants were dead and there was no life left on the Earth."

He barks a laugh at that and she is startled. "Preposterous," he says, "The One God would never allow such a thing to happen to his creation."

She shakes her head, and he is surprised she dares such a direct contradiction of his pronouncement. "No, everything dies eventually; that's what the Djinn says."

He frowns sadly at her. Poor girl, to have been so lead astray by powers beyond her comprehension. "The djinni may come from God, but they are not of him. They know not his mind. It is their lot to tell lies to all they meet. Their word cannot be trusted."

She merely shrugs at this. "Whatever. I know what I saw. I mean…Rose saw the Earth and there was no one there. Everyone was gone. There were no humans left. Just…just herself and…well, Cassandra." Her face twitches into an unseemly mask.

"The seeress of legend?" he asks.

"Wha?" she queries. "No, I don't…" She shakes her head again, and this time he knows it is from confusion. "What do you mean?"

"I have heard tale before of a woman of that name. She had the gift of prophecy, but God cursed her for it. She saw the truth that was to be, but none could ever believe her."

"No," his dove murmurs, staring down at her knees. "Cassandra was a liar and a murderer. But I don't think she could see the future, if she had she would have known what was going to happen to her." Her eyes go vague at this, as if she is staring through some cloudy vista of memory.

"Perhaps," he says, drawing her attention back where it belonged, "You should start at the beginning." He is reminding her of her own words from last night, and she shifts uncomfortably on her knees at the recollection.

"Yeah, right," she starts. "So the Djinn took Rose into the future, to this…this ship in the air.

"A ship," he queries, not bothering to hide his fascination, "That flies?" She nods and he leans forward expectantly. "My dove, you have flown? Truly? How delightful that must have been, to soar free above the clouds."

"It was," she says fervently. "It's so beautiful! Everything's so beautiful when your high above and looking down. The world looks like a bright blue jewel in a sea of black. And there's no anger or war or people being awful to each other, or if there is you can't see it or hear it from way up there. There's just peace and silence."

"Would that I had a magic carpet of my own," he says, leaning back onto his cushions. "I would race the kestrels for speed and challenge even the great eagle his supremacy of the sky." He smiles at the thought.

"There were others on the ship," she continues. "Strange creatures…aliens." She turns to him, then, her head cocked to one side. For a comical moment, she looks very much like one of the docile, fat white doves his harem girls feed in the courtyard. He thinks with pride of the appropriateness of the moniker he has given her. "D'you know what an alien is?"

"Someone from another land," he says, "A foreigner."

She thinks about that for a moment. "Yeah, I guess so, but these people were a little more foreign than most." She ducks her head low between her shoulders and he gets the impression she is trying to hide from him while in plain site. "They were from other planets."

He knows the word 'planet'. It means one of the wanderers. The stars which are not stars; which wobble back and forth along their path. The Ionians give them the names of their gods, but then the Ionians find gods in everything. It is a silly pagan belief that he has no patience for. His own astronomers have tracked their courses within the night sky, and could predict when they would appear and where. Celestial phenomena are no more ethereal than the changing of the tides, than the surety that water will flow downhill.

It is these same astronomers who hypothesize that the wanderers are distant worlds, perhaps not so much unlike their own. It is a difficult concept to grasp, that there could be anything outside the firm earth he knows, but then he had not spent his youth entirely on women and music and other such pleasantries. He had studied, studied the sciences, and he certainly knew of the possibility of other worlds. Perhaps, with their own civilizations; people who could stare up at the sable dome of their own sky and speculate about life here on this world. No, he can believe in other…planets, she had called them…and even in the possibility of other life out there among the stars.

The question is, can he believe her?

"There was one," she says, picking nervously at her cuticles, and he makes a mental note to instruct the eunuchs that she be well manicured before being brought into his presence again…if she _is _ever to be brought into his presence again. "He was only a giant head, in a giant jar. He couldn't really talk, but he seemed very wise." She leaves off playing with her hands and instead crosses her arms before her in discomfort. "And another…she was a tree, but she could walk and talk." The pallid girl looks up at him, a shadow of fear caressing her brow. She thinks he will not believe her. He has no reason to believe her. Her tale is beyond the fantastical, but then, is that not what stories are for? If stories were all of going to work and eating food and loving women, then they would not be much worth hearing.

"Like a dryad," he prompts.

She is surprised. "Like…yeah, a dryad. That's Greek right?" He nods and she goes on with more confidence. "Anyway, the…the aliens, they were all on the flying ship for a party." She bites at her bottom lip before continuing. "They were there to watch the end of the world."

He observes her in silence a moment. "That seems a strange pastime, something only the gods would indulge in."

"Nah," she shakes her head, "They weren't gods. Just rich."

"The rich are as gods to the poor, just as the learned are gods to the imbecile."

Her mouth is hanging open, and yes, someone will definitely have to teach her better manners. She closes it and blinks several times. "Well, maybe. I mean, I was never rich, and I didn't think all that much of them. Bunch of stuck up weirdos if you ask me. But, then, I was never all that smart either…and the Djinn…well…he was smart." She made a small noise, then, and smiled. Just the slightest exhale of breath that, were it any other woman, in any other situation, he might think was a laugh. "Really, really smart. And he always seemed sort of like a god to me, so I guess you're right."

He nods. Of course he is right. He is vaguely amused she might ever have the temerity to think otherwise. Ah, how these foreigners treat their women! It is a travesty. Such gilded beauty, wasted.

"Cassandra, though," she continues, "Wasn't there for the show. She wanted to kill everyone else onboard."

"Why?" he asks, sensibly.

"For money," she says, and he can tell by the reaction on her face, the same one she had worn earlier when discussing the rich gods, that she finds this fact completely abhorrent.

"She was an assassin?" he clarifies.

"Er…no…well, not exactly." Her brows draw together in a flaxen line. "It's…sort of hard to explain."

She does explain, at length, and with no little difficulty. This Cassandra of whom she speaks was human, but not. She was also, somehow, a piece of skin stretched like a carpet over a loom; and if he was not by now accustomed to the wild fantasies of her tale, he would have laughed aloud and promptly found some other form of entertainment. A woman of skin, preposterous! And with decent breeding too, as could be seen from the clever gifts of music and a great bird's egg she brought to charm her hosts. And the windings of her nefarious plot are even more convoluted. It is beyond all sensibility.

But then…

She speaks of the sun; of a flash like a thousand night-flowers seen only from the corner of her eye. Of fire that roared in silence with an inexhaustible hunger; red and orange and brilliant yellow filling the giant picture window before her. She speaks of dark specks peppering it all, huge mountain-sized boulders drifting like wafted feathers through frictionless space, and her dismay as she realized they were pieces of her world….lifeless chunks of her home. And for the first time since she has come into his presence, for the first time since he first gazed upon her compelling features, he sees her eyes fill with tears, and knows she tells the truth.

Unaccountably, he feels the urge to take her into his arms, to cradle her like a child and whisper sweet lullabies into her ears. For a moment, he pictures himself doing so, and feels his loose trousers grow tight around his groin. She is so beautiful in her delicate desperation. Soundlessly, her chest heaves against her will and her knuckles turn bone white where they grip at her raiment. Her chin is lifted slightly; her face tilted in an attempt keep her tears from falling, but it is in vain. Like a soft mist budding upon orchid petals, smooth water droplets alight upon her cheeks and sparkle like diamonds in the sunlight.

What!? Morning again? So soon?

He shakes his head in dismay and sighs. "My dove, if I had known it was an epic you were telling I would have brought you a lyre."

"'M not," her response sounds harsher than he is used to hearing, and he wonders if it is a result of her tears. She wipes almost violently at her face with the sleeve of her gown, and looks away. She seems embarrassed at her reaction to her own story. There is no reason for her to be, tears are the rightful province of women. She sniffs heavily, and appears to gather herself before meeting his eyes. "I'm not lying," she asserts forcefully.

He blinks at her. "I didn't say you…oh!" he exclaims, catching on. "Oh!" he repeats with glee, and suddenly his laughter is ringing off the curves in the high ceiling.

"Whot?" she asks, and her wide eyed gaze is enough to send him into additional peals of mirth. "Did I say somthin' funny?"

"Oh, my dove," he wheezes, when his breath returns, wiping a small tear from his own cheek. "You are precious, indeed."

"I did somethin' wrong didn' I." She squirms uncomfortably in her seat. Her accent is so strong he can barely make her words out. It is low and almost growling, and he has to restrain himself before he laughs again at her. "Sorry," she apologizes, trying to smooth out the wrinkles she has crushed into her skirts in her grief. "I'm always doin' dumb things like that." A wry smile creases her lips, bringing a lovely light to her features despite its crookedness. "Stupid ape, tha's me."

"Never, my darling dove," he admonishes, "No Barbary marionette could ever boast such beauty as you possess. Why, there is more elegance in your little finger than in half the ladies of my house."

She looks up at him then, through lowered lashes, and he can see a rosy blush color her cheeks at his compliment. "Thank you," she says, and for the first time, he truly hears the honorific in her delayed, "My Lord." A smile stretches across her face and he can see the slightest pink tip of her tongue tucked behind the ivory barrier of her teeth. It is magical, this smile, and his nether parts pulse again in delicious anticipation. He was right to label her as dangerous, and perhaps not just to the women of his palace. What man would not be brought to the heights of desire by such a sight? What would he not give to take her now, to part her silken limbs and reveal the glistening petals of her womanhood beneath.

Her massive yawn, only half hidden behind a hastily raised palm, breaks his mood entirely.

He flicks his eyes to where minute dust particles could now be seen to dance and weave in the rays of sunlight slanting through the windows; thinks momentarily of dust specks the size of palaces twirling against a backdrop of endless flame. "Morning again dove, and you are no lark to sing with the break of day." With a movement so quick, she has no time to act surprised, he takes her raised hand in his own and drags it towards his waiting lips. Only the most chaste of kisses is placed against the back of her knuckles. More can wait. There will be time; there is always time. "Until the evening my dear," he murmurs into her hand before dropping it and getting to his feet. Stretching his arms behind him and hearing a slight pop from his shoulders, he sighs. "Perhaps then you shall finish you tale, hmmm?" he suggests lightly, before padding off to his inner sanctum.


	4. Chapter 4

"So, how long are we just going to wait here?!" Donna hissed directly into his ear.

Her breath tickled against the sensitive lobe and he flinched away. He gave her a look he hoped was withering out of the corner of his eye and replied, "Until they come out again."

"Well what are they up to in there all this time?" she asked a bit louder, tipping her head towards the townhouse set back from the street and separated from them by a black, wrought iron fence.

"I can't see through walls, Donna," he said, trying and failing to keep the annoyance out of his voice. It's not Donna he's frustrated with, but himself. Why couldn't he identify the species of the well dressed attendant? He's brilliant; it should be child's play. Granted, he hadn't gotten the best look at the thing, but still…

He turned his attention back to the door the attractive young man and the strange alien creature had disappeared behind over forty-five minutes ago. "They could be having tea and biscuits for all we know."

"Tea?" she shrilled incredulously.

"Yes, tea," he replied with a put-upon sigh. "What, can't aliens drink tea now?"

"No, of course they can," she said, "It's just, I figured they'd be up to something more…nefarious."

He shook his head. "Donna we know there's a giant green alien in there, but for all we know it very well could be a peaceful sort. Just another law abiding foreign national making a life for himself in New York City. No threat to anyone…except maybe the local stray population."

"Well, then whatever are we standing out here on the street for?" she asked sensibly.

He looked at her in all seriousness. "Because in my experience that's usually not the case."

"Ah," she replied, and nodded her head sagely.

The Doctor's attention was caught by movement in a window on the second floor of the building. A length of white curtain was drawn aside, and though his sight couldn't penetrate through the darkness beyond, he suspected that someone was peering out at them. The hand on the curtain was human, small, and feminine. Not belonging to either their mysterious alien friend or his handsome companion. He wondered if that was the flat the pair had entered or if the occupant's interest in the goings-on of the street was purely coincidental. He was attempting to piece together how many different apartments might be housed in the one building, when he was startled out of his reverie by a hand far too coarse and heavy to be Donna's landing unceremoniously on his shoulder.

"Exactly what do you think you're doing?" growled a harsh voice behind him and the Doctor spun around to face his addresser.

The man came up to about the height of the Doctor's nose, not much taller than Donna in heels, but what body he had was compacted firmly into his smaller stature. His face was a mass of wrinkles, but not from any apparent aging. No, the crags and valleys marring his visage were more likely a result of years of indulgence in the vice of cigarette smoking; a habit evidenced by the tiny white tube sticking prominently out from between his teeth. And _there_ was a rarity for you, the man had nearly perfect teeth. Oh sure, you expected to find better dental hygiene in Americans than you usually found in Great Britain, but this was extraordinary. They were straight and firm, bright white despite the obvious tobacco obsession, and strangely sharp looking. His hair was a messy tangle of brown that the Doctor found oddly familiar, and long enough to curl under his ears and swipe along his shoulders. Where the hair on his head ended, the smaller, curly hairs on the back of his neck began, creating a nearly unbroken carpet on the little bit of skin revealed from beneath his long, beige trench coat. His eyebrows, too, were hairier than average, burying themselves in the fringe of his bangs; his eyes dark, deep set, and thunderous.

The Doctor was immediately put in mind of a tough-as-nails junkyard dog

The man took a step back from the Doctor and Donna, thrusting his hands deep into the pockets of his coat. His eyes flicked over the two of them in a calculating manner. Subconsciously, the Doctor reached into his own pocket and felt the comforting, cold metal of the sonic screwdriver against his palm. Something was pricking at him, something that screamed 'NOT RIGHT' in an unintelligible tongue. His nostrils flared and he scented…well, smoke mostly. Cigarette smoke which had permeated through the man's clothes and hair, and possibly his very skin. But under the smoky overtones was something…else. He was human, and yet…

The man's nose quivered and tiny muscles in his cheeks contracted. His pupils widened with attention and his breath quickened. The Doctor could hear the faint sounds of his heart thudding against his chest cavity, and those rhythmic beats were increasing their tempo. The man's eyes narrowed as he focused intently on the Doctor, all but giving a pass to his companion. This man was examining _him_! And that settled it, there was something very not right about him. For all he looked like some private investigator torn from the pages of a dog-eared pulp novel, no human detective the Doctor knew of actually sniffed out perpetrators by physically sniffing them out.

The Doctor breathed in through his mouth, allowing his overactive taste buds to aid his sense of smell. He tasted wind. Cold mountain wind, and that made absolutely no sense whatsoever; that beneath the tobacco haze surrounding him this man should be a breath of freezing fresh air. It put him in mind of running. Running through primeval woods, dodging the underbrush and hot on the trail of some scampering quarry. It's blood a sharp tang in the forest air. A touch of frost scattered about the tree roots and puddles covered in a thin brownish-grey film of ice. Winter in the mountains and the woodlands and not enough prey to-

A sharp elbow to his side brought him back to the real world.

"Umm…right," he started in on his traditional babble. "We're touristing. Yes, that's a word, right?" He glanced at Donna for confirmation and is met with an exasperated stare. "What tourists do when they're out…ah… seeing…things." He looked back at their inquisitor.

"Right," the man drawled, his eyes shifting suspiciously between the Doctor and Donna. "Sure you are. And exactly what is so fascinating about this particular townhouse that you've been standing here for almost an hour staring at it?"

The Doctor swung around to look again at the home. The shade had fallen back in to place. "The…ah…architecture." He turned back to his questioner with a benevolent grin, "1940's Greek Revival. Lovely work." The man blinked, clearly not buying into whatever the Doctor was trying to sell. Behind him, the Doctor heard the creak of a door and footsteps on the front porch. Some of those footfalls were distinctly too heavy for something sized like a regular human.

"They're the ones sheriff," came an authoritative, but not unpleasant, voice. The Doctor turned and was not surprised to see the good looking man from before. Behind him, as always, marched the tall green alien, apparently engrossed in scribbling something into an appointment book. The pen looked ridiculously small in his huge fist, and the Doctor found himself momentarily wavering between his visual perceptions. He could see the big scaly monster, and the little bald headed man he was impersonating. They occupied the same space, made the same motions, and approached the group with the same deferential attitude. "They followed us here," the young man continued his explanation, "And then stood outside watching the whole time we were inside."

The man in the trench coat grunted in acknowledgement and reached out almost faster than the Doctor could see to grip roughly at his and Donna's wrists.

"Look," the Doctor wheedled, "I think there's been some sort of mistake. We haven't done anything wrong. We're just sight-seeing."

The strange man lowered brows so thick it would take a push mower to tame them and stared darkly at Donna. At her _hair_. "I don't think so," he said without emotion, and tugged forcefully upon their arms. The Doctor held his ground, wincing as Donna tripped forwards and nearly fell. The alien/butler advanced slowly towards him, his manner all the more threatening for the utter calm with which he performed the action. It was clear that he was offering to assist the gruff man in taking Donna and the Doctor in, and that was not something the Doctor wanted to risk. Relaxing his shoulders, he stopped fighting and stepped forward.

The man grunted again, and pulled again at their arms. "Thanks for the help sheriff," the pretty chap said with an ingratiating smile.

"Sheriff?" Donna shrieked her defiance, ducking away from the strange man and trying to pry her arm loose. "So where's your giant hat and shiny gold star Mister Sheriff? Honestly, we may be tourists, but even we know they don't have sheriffs in New York City!"

The man managed to retain his grip on Donna, but had enough difficulty doing so that, had the Doctor chosen that very moment to lunge to his own escape, he might have succeeded. The fact that he remained impassive throughout brought Donna to an almost immediate standstill. She stared at him over the shoulder of the shorter man between them, a look of betrayal filling her features. He raised his eyebrows significantly. The man jerked on both their forearms where he held them tight and urged them forward yet again. Donna was again caught off guard by the movement and was left a stumbling step behind. So was the Doctor. The man kept up a good pace, enough to keep Donna at a jog and to force the Doctor to utilize every inch of his long stride to keep up.

"You're telling me they _do _have sheriffs in New York?" Donna stage whispered behind the man's back. The Doctor repressed a sigh. A master of deceptive tactics, Donna was not. Finally, taking her cue from his silence, she held her tongue.

They turned at the first corner and soon found themselves again on the main drag they had originally toured. Before them was a tall building surrounded by a high metal fence. The sheriff dragged them through the front gate and up the walk to the doors. On the stone steps leading into the building was a young man in jeans and a blue t-shirt. His hands were wrapped in huge bandages that made him look like a reject extra from some low budget mummy flick. His face was speckled with band-aids, just a shade too dark to match his light skin tone. Held carefully balanced between his swaddled extremities was a brass trumpet that the boy was bathing in a look of near despair. His head raised at the sound of their approaching footsteps and he shot to his feet, secreting the instrument behind himself. His eyes fluttered nervously over the forms of Donna and the Doctor, before coming to rest with clarity on the stubble chinned man between them, just as that particular chin was thrust purposefully towards him.

"Sick leave's cancelled Blue, we've got work to do."

The boy nodded solemnly and raced up the steps to hold open the door.

"Look," the Doctor tried, feeling that reasoning with their captors was very unlikely to work at this point, "I really don't think we're you're biggest concern."

"You've got that right," grumbled the sheriff as he shoved the Doctor somewhat roughly through the entranceway.

"I mean me? Not that dangerous. Well, not obviously anyway. Whereas, at this very moment, wandering your streets you have a giant, green, scaly, pointy-toothed, underbited-" The Doctor stopped short of any further explanation. The two of them had been manhandled into the foyer of what looked like a classy New York hotel. Oriental rugs were laid luxuriantly over the marble floor, and a bank of polished metal elevators flanked the wooden staircase. Potted plants and antique suits of armor filled the empty corners of the room and added interest to an otherwise bare space. And reclined in an office chair near the door, his feet resting with crossed ankles upon the flat desktop before him, was a huge, crimson-skinned, horn-headed, troll. "Oh," the Doctor breathed, not knowing what else to say.

Donna staggered up next to him, and followed his stricken gaze. "What now?" she hissed, turning away from the desk to bathe him in a questioning look, obviously unfazed by anything she had seen.

The troll appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be asleep. His head was bent so that his massive double chins rested upon the vast, red trunk of his chest. His eyes were closed in repose, however, the Doctor was not fooled. The creature had an air of constant awareness about him that was rather unnerving. The cap of a night watchman was perched comically upon his huge head, and a light blue button down shirt was stretched tightly across his torso, the buttons straining. A dull badge was clipped onto the chest pocket.

A tickle of nervous energy raced up the Doctor's forearms, causing his skin to pimple into goose bumps and the tiny, receptive hairs to come to attention. He repressed a shudder with effort. It was strange for the mere sight of an alien to affect him this way, even one so imposing and (he had to admit with frustration) wholly unfamiliar as this. Perhaps it reminded him vaguely of that horrid beast on Krop Tor, but no. No, it was not the same. And if the race of this particular form of non-resident species were unknown to him, well the accompanying prickling sensation was not. On the contrary, it was disturbingly familiar. As familiar as his own suit or the chucks on his feet. As familiar as the little blue key draped on a loose chain and stuck deep within his trouser pockets.

Ah…right.

Turning to the gruff man who had taken them this far, he stated, "This place…it's dimensionally transcendental."

The man removed his cigarette from its ensconced position in the corner of his mouth. "You're a loony," he replied.

The boy who had let them in stood uncomfortably to one side. He was staring at Donna with a particular wariness, an instinctive distrust that seemed at odds with his otherwise wide-eyed and honest features. "Blue," the sheriff said, "Take the girl to the Cloisters then meet me in my office."

The boy nodded, taking Donna by the arm. "This way ma'am," he said.

"Oh, no you don't," she exclaimed, ripping her arm free. "I'm not going anywhere without him." She pointed at the Doctor and he was simultaneously touched and exasperated that she would insist on staying with him. He hated his companions wandering off, as they all seemed wont to do - silly humans, but he had to admit that oftentimes the best way to find out what was going on in a strange situation was to split up and investigate separately.

"Donna," he interjected, as calmly as he could manage, "Let's just do what the nice sheriff says, okay? We haven't done anything wrong. This is just some sort of honest mistake and he's not going to do anything to harm us, right?" As he said the last he allowed his head to whip around and focus on the man in question. He didn't hide the menacing snarl he added to his final word, and he backed up the implied threat with his most intimidating glare. For a moment, their eyes locked. The Doctor was almost surprised he didn't see wavering heat patterns in the air between them, given the fire of their mutual stares. Kings and generals and giant octopoid beasts had quailed under similar looks from him. The sheriff didn't. After what seemed like an eternity, but what in actuality and the Doctor's perfect time sense, had been barely more than four seconds, both looked away at the same time. 'Stalemate,' the Doctor thought with no little astonishment. However, he felt his message had gotten through and Donna would be well treated.

"She'll be fine," the man said, more to Donna and the boy than to the Doctor. "As long as she doesn't make trouble," he growled in subsequent warning.

Donna huffed and crossed her arms violently. "Fine," she said, holding her arms out straight before her with her wrists together, as if daring them to cuff her. "Take me to your leader. And none of that 'ma'am' stuff, you hear me?!" The last was an aside to the young man, who nodded, and not touching her this time, lead the way to one of the elevators. The sheriff still had the Doctor's forearm tight in his grip, and he took off up the stairs with little concern for the individual following in his wake.

"You know," the Doctor tried to sound enthusiastic and bubbly through gritted teeth, "This is probably not the best way to increase tourism; taking in random visitors off the street. Really, I have half a mind to complain to the consulate." The man stared impassively away from the Doctor and ignored him completely. "Come to think of it, I never did see your badge, sheriff," he continued without a breath, "How do I know you're really law enforcement, hmmm? Maybe you get your kicks kidnapping foreign nationals." The man paused at a door labeled "Security Office." Beneath, in smaller letters, it read "B. Wolf." The man fit a key in the lock and pushed the door open, while the Doctor continued to babble behind him. "And I may be wrong, but isn't there something in your Constitution about holding people against their will? Something about not depriving people of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" The sheriff pulled a wooden desk chair out from behind a metal bookcase and thrust the Doctor into it. "No, wait," the Doctor corrected himself brightly, "That's the Declaration of Independence. Well, regardless, it's not very nice, you just dragging us in here like that without suitable explanation."

The man was rummaging furiously in the bottom drawer of an ancient, file covered desk. The Doctor took this opportunity and put his mind to observation his surroundings, while his mouth ran on in unaided discussion of common law and the differences between the British and American legal systems. The room was a study in disorganization. Windowless and tomb-like, it felt as though a fresh breath of air hadn't been felt there in ages. Books and files littered the shelves indiscriminately. A single sickly potted plant wilted in the corner. Behind the desk was a corkboard full of old news clippings and yellowing, coffee mug stained memoranda. A few crisp, white edged photos were thrown into the mix. On the right, just above the sheriff's bowed head, was a picture of a wolf, its hair stuck out at all angles in an angry burr.

The Doctor did a double take, and felt his pulses rise.

Before he could ask what exactly the odd photo was for, the desk drawer slammed shut with a sound like a gunshot, and the sheriff strode out from behind it. Grabbing the Doctor's hands, he pulled them behind his back. The Doctor heard the telltale clicking of handcuffs being affixed to his wrists just before he felt their cold metal press almost painfully against his skin. "Hey," he broke in on his own gibbering speech, "Have you been listening to a word I've been saying? You're really not supposed to- Ouch!" A bit of skin got pinched in the second cuff's closure, and he jerked his hands away. "That hurt!" he cried indignantly. Continuing to ignore his distress, the sheriff returned to his position behind the desk. The door opened to admit the young boy in blue, returning decidedly without Donna in tow. The sheriff nodded solemnly in his direction before reaching forward to flick on the old fashioned desk lamp and turn it full on the Doctor's seated form. The Doctor flinched and leaned as far away from the hot glare of the light as his bindings would allow him.

"What's your name?" the sheriff's deep voice rasped at him.

"Sorry," he replied, still squinting against the light. "But I didn't quite get the chance to introduce myself before. I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor who?" the man asked with a raise of his brows.

"I get the a lot," was the Doctor's only response.

The sheriff made an odd motion with his head at that. It was something between a confused tilt to the side and a thrust forward of his one ear, as if in order to hear better. "Right," he said drawing out the word until it was several syllables long. "And you're from?"

"Oh, jolly old England, of course. What, can't recognize the accent?" He smiled disarmingly…or what he hoped was disarmingly.

"You sound Scottish to me," the man replied coldly.

"What?!" the Doctor, spluttered. "I…I do not!" he asserted vehemently.

"Scottish aping a London accent I'd say," the sheriff mused.

The Doctor's chin fell onto his chest, and his eyes went wide. After several attempts to make a coherent response (a rapid machine gun fire of exasperated nonsense), he settled upon, "That's preposterous!"

"I've spent some time across the pond myself Mister Doctor," the sheriff continued, unmoved. He sighed heavily, "I don't suppose you have a passport."

"In my coat pocket," the Doctor responded, tipping his head to the left to indicate which one. The sheriff tossed his head at the young man and soon the boy was kneeled next to the Doctor's chair and rooting around in his massive pockets. The boy brought out a plastic yo-yo, an archaeopteryx egg that the Doctor had forgotten to put back in its nest, and an overripe banana, before finally chancing upon a little black pocketbook sized item. "That's it," the Doctor indicated, flashing the kid a radiant smile.

The boy flipped open the psychic paper. "It says you're The Doctor and that you're from London, England."

"That's me," the Doctor agreed with a confident swing of his head. The boy stood and showed the item to the sheriff.

The man's dark eyes floated over the paper, taking in what it said only briefly, before fixing his glance again upon the Doctor. "Fascinating," he said, "Funny how the outside doesn't look like any passport I've ever seen." He snorted and took the psychic paper out of the boy's grasp. "I'll be taking this…upstairs. Have some of our experts look it over. In the meantime, Blue, you get a sample from this guy." He strode towards the door, calling out over his shoulder, "We'll finish our discussion when I get back." The boy looked apologetically backwards at the Doctor, before sliding through the door after him.

The Doctor was alone.

He pulled at the bonds on his wrists. They strained, but showed no signs of giving anytime soon. He screwed himself into uncomfortable positions to see if he could get a better look. He knocked the cuffs against the back of the chair. He tried to feel all around each to see if there was a simple catch or if a key was necessary. No dice.

Curling as far around as his trusses would allow, the Doctor reached for the fabric of his coat. After two sweeping, twisting attempts that nearly sent him and the chair toppling to the floor, he managed to grasp at one end of it. Working blindly with his fingers, he deftly pulled the jacket up until he brushed against the pocket. Plunging down into it, he felt around wildly before his hand bumped against the item he was searching for. Pulling the screwdriver from its place, he calibrated it to what he imagined was the correct setting and turned it around in his hand to aim at the cuffs. Behind him, a loud buzzing filled the air.

Still no dice.

He flipped the screwdriver around, turned it to yet another setting, and tried again. The tool hummed in vain. Finally, on the third try, he got the correct setting and the clasp over his left wrist sprang free. Bringing both hands in front of him with a relieved sigh, he relaxed his strained shoulders and rubbed carefully at where the cuffs had cut into his skin.

The door swung inwards and the Doctor thrust his hands hurriedly back behind the chair, dropping the screwdriver to the floor with an un-muffled clatter. "Hello," he covered brightly, beaming at the young man in blue. "Back already?"

The boy looked quizzically at him and explained, "I'm supposed to get a sample from you." He held up a small glass vial and a pocket knife.

"Excuse me?" the Doctor said, his eyes shifting from the knife to the boy's face and then back again. "Come again."

"Here," the boy said, stepping behind the chair, "I promise it won't hurt a-" He cut himself off upon seeing the unattached state of the Doctor's bindings. "You…" he tried to go on. "How did you do that?" he finished in unabashed bewilderment.

The Doctor pulled his hands from behind the chair and held them up before himself in a non-threatening manner. He gave the boy an amused look and stated, "They must not have been secured very well."

The boy picked up the unfastened metal loop still swinging from the Doctor's right wrist and examined it. "And you didn't run because?" He quirked an eyebrow at the Doctor and looked at him sideways.

"Figured it was more interesting to stick around and see what happens." He can't help that his voice grows colder on the next statement, "Plus you have my friend in custody." Whatever he looks like, it's enough to make the young man step back nervously, dropping his hold on the handcuff. And thank goodness, he was beginning to believe he was losing his touch at the whole Oncoming Storm bit. "I won't leave her behind," he finishes darkly.

"I was going to have to free you anyway," the young man extemporized. "This isn't exactly the type of procedure you leave to someone with bandages all over his hands." The Doctor detected a hint of bitterness in his tone. He seemed about to say something else, when his eye was caught by the glint of the sonic screwdriver. It had half rolled under the chair and the Doctor had attempted to hide it with a strategically placed shoe. "What this?" the boy asked, bending down and retrieving the item of his interest. He turned the object over in his swaddled hands, looking at it from all sides.

"It's…ahh….umm…" The boy looked up at him hopefully. "You probably wouldn't believe me anyway."

"Right," said the boy, pocketing the screwdriver, and holding out the implements he had brought with him, "We need a few drops of your blood." He said this as if it was the most common thing in the world, asking people for a blood sample.

"You…what?" the Doctor exclaimed. "Why? Why on Earth would you want that?" He suddenly remembered Messaline and Jenny. Remembered DNA and daughters and dying. That experience had not turned out well, he didn't expect this one would be any better.

The boy looked sheepish. "Would you believe it's for identification purposes?"

The Doctor thought about that. Thought about early 21st century genetic technology. Thought about the high level perception filters and para-dimensional structures these people apparently had at their disposal. Thought about alien tech and alien purposes and the fact that looking at someone's blood, even under a microscope, didn't give you a single clue as to who they actually were. "No," he answered honestly.

The boy sighed and crossed his arms with an air of forfeit, tucking his wrapped hands under their opposing elbows. "Look," he said, "If you're really who you say you are and you're not a threat, I promise you that giving us a blood sample will actually help your case." He gazed seriously at the Doctor. "And since right about now the sheriff's ready to throw you to the wolves, trust me, you need all the help you can get."

The Doctor was good at reading people. He was especially good at reading humans. He'd spent a goodly portion of his 900 years watching them and learning their ways. He thought he was a pretty good judge of character and, in general, those individuals he'd felt sure enough about to invite onto his ship had only affirmed his assumption. This human – and he was most certainly human, unlike so many of his compatriots – seemed trustworthy. He seemed like the kind of sensible person you should listen to. He seemed worried and hurt, and yet still willing to trust others himself. His bandages were spotted red where blood had leaked through. Whatever had happened to him, it had been bad, and it had been concentrated on his hands. Defensive wounds, the Doctor thought; he'd been attacked by someone…or something. Through some mysterious quirk of nature, the Doctor was always willing to favor those on the defensive; those being aggressed as opposed to the aggressor. He almost always sided with the underdog. That's just the kind of man he was…the kind of man he'd _always_ been.

"All right, then," he said. Taking the implements from the boy, he pricked his own finger and quickly prepared the sample. Handing the vial off to the kid, he half-jokingly cautioned, "Be careful with that."

"I will," the boy said, sensing the seriousness in his tone. He slipped the vial into his pocket where it joined the sonic screwdriver, and the door swung open once again.

The sheriff paced in with a dismissive glance at the boy. He arranged himself behind his desk and, leaning over it in an intimidating manner, addressed the Doctor at eye level.

"Now," he all but growled, "We finish our little talk."


	5. Chapter 5

"Where were we then?" he asks the girl as she kneels patiently before him. She is dressed in shades of brown today, layers of coffee and ochre and tan giving her the appearance of a duned landscape lit by slanted sunset rays. He notices that the backs of her hands have been painted with henna in intricate markings that match this evening's wardrobe for color and formality. He wonders which of the servants have taken such initiative, and applauds the choices which have resulted in the fine vision presented to him.

"My Lord," she begins, speaking slowly and with great care in his native tongue, "Rose, the Djinn and Potentate Harriet were running through the halls of the black palace attempting to escape the smelly green lizard people." And yes, he remembers of course. He had wondered whether she would, for she had stumbled off to the bridal chambers the morning before as if blind, deaf and dumb, so tired was she from her night of storytelling. He has kept her busy during daylight hours recently, having more appropriate clothes fitted and her hair properly dressed. No doubt she has had little chance to sleep. And yet, when she speaks her tales, he sees her whole face come alight with the exuberant joy of her memories and sleep fall fluttering from her face like samara in autumn winds. He had wished to check if his instincts ran true in this respect; whether her interest in her own stories transcended the exhaustion of her body.

"Ah yes," he continues, covering his minor deception. "You may continue in your manner of speaking if you are more comfortable."

"My Lord, I am trying to learn to address my Lord properly." Her concentration is evident on her features. "My Lord's ladies are assisting me."

He nods his understanding. So she is getting speaking lessons too. No wonder dark circles hang like draped curtains beneath her eyes. "I see," he says, "But if you are forced to continue at this slow rate we shall never finish your tale before morning." She flinches slightly at that, and he wonders if this new awareness of his language has come with an accompanying recognition of his intentions for her once her story is complete. "Pray continue in you normal way."

Her shoulders droop, a mix of defeat and relief. "Thank you, my Lord," she breathes, the words flowing again like water from her mouth. "The three of them ran to the Cabinet Room where they figured they'd find the Emergency Protocols." She pauses to arrange her thoughts and he takes the time to consider the incongruity of a room full of cabinets.

What would be the point? Truly, how many cabinets does one need? Even in a house of government? One might wonder exactly who was running such a place, if he had not already been informed that his dove's country was ruled by a queen. Preposterous. His interest piqued by her confusing description of Harriet's position, he had spent half the previous night questioning his dove on matters of government in her own world, and being continually surprised. Women, it seems, were permitted to hold office. Commoners were afforded representation. Dissent with the ruling political party was not only permitted, but encouraged. His dove had even recited to him, in a tentative quaver, a short song allegedly taught to her as a child that was intended to explain the workings of the "parliamentary system," whatever that meant. She apologized as she stumbled over the words, saying it had been a very long time ago that she learned it.

"There was a bottle of alcohol in the room, and the Djinn grabbed it and used it to threaten the monsters."

"How did he do that?"

She gives a lopsided smile and he feels something inside of his chest go lopsided at the sight of it. "He said he would triple its flammability." Her eyes roll and her voice turns gravelly, "Through what he proposed to ignite it with I'd still like to know."

"And they believed that?" he asks with great incredulity.

"Good with the bluffing, him. Absolute horror to play at cards." He nods and she continues. "They figured it out eventually, but the Djinn, he had a backup plan. There was this button on the wall and when he pushed it a door of thick metal came down all the walls, blocking the entrances to the Cabinet Room and locking them safe inside. The monsters couldn't get in."

He thinks about that a second before interjecting, "But then Rose and the Djinn would be unable to get out."

"Yeah," she says, the wry tone she had adopted earlier still dominating her voice. "But, it gave them a few minutes to think in peace at least." She begins to explain about the 'Slitheen.' About how they were a family, not a race, and how they weren't looking to take over her world, but to destroy it and sell its charred remains piecemeal. He can think of few things more horrible. However, one of those things might just be the human skin suits they contrived for themselves from their hapless victims. He felt his own skin crawl with the clarity of imagination his dove's stories brought to him.

"With Rose and Harriet's help the Djinn was able to narrow down their species from something like a million possibilities." She shook her head in what he recognized as amazement. "He figured they were from-" The word she says next is not a word. At least not a word he has ever heard in any language. But she says it so quickly, so smoothly, that he is sure she must have practiced it. She smiles with apparent pride and amusement at her own pronunciation and he sees the pink tip of her tongue sneak between her teeth. "That means they were weak against certain kinds of acid, and all you really had to do was throw pickle juice on them and they'd explode."

"That sounds," his mouth twists into a moue of distaste, "Disagreeable."

"You could say that. Took Mickey three days to clean the remains of one from his kitchen." She snorts a brief laugh, though he fails to see the humor. "Anyway," she continued, subdued, "All the Slitheen from around the world were coming to the black palace and Rose thought maybe, once they were all together, they could be taken out at the same time. Maybe by some massive weapon or the like. And Rose's mum – that's Jackie, remember- she never trusted the Djinn, not as far as she could throw him, but she thought there had to be something he could do. And he said, yes, that there was, but that he couldn't do it and ensure Rose's safety." She takes a deep breath. "And Rose said…she said, 'Do it.'"

Her eyes flutter closed and he can see she is falling into a memory. "The Djinn, he sort of turned to her at that. He was surprised, really surprised, and she didn't think she'd ever seen him look at her like that before." Her eyes open twinkling and she smiles. It is a secretive smile, the kind meant to be hidden behind a hastily drawn veil. The kind that suggests that sometimes, just sometimes, women know more then they let on. "It made her feel like…well, like she made the right choice, no matter what happened. Then the Djinn said, 'You don' even know what _it_ is, an' you'd jus' let me do it?' And, yeah, 'course she would."

He holds a hand up to stop her. She straightens her shoulders under his attentive scrutiny and folds her hands upon her lap, waiting for him to continue. She has become a bit hard to follow, speeding up her speech and dropping consonants as if they were hot pokers. He is considering the Djinn's words - though he has some trouble believing those were exactly his words - and her own, and a disturbing thought has come to the surface of his mind. "Why?" he asks her, hoping against hope that she might reply with some reasonable rationalization.

"Why what?" she queries.

"Why did Rose not ask what scheme the Djinn was planning?"

She shrugs. "Didn't matter to her. I mean, she knew the Djinn would do the right thing, yeah? 'S jus', not even something she had to think about." She speaks with such conviction, that he sees it; sees the strength of her belief in the set of her jaw. Sees in the fervent glow of her eyes the depth of her ebullient trust in this strange, and frankly frightening, magical madman. Sees in the flippant raise and dip of her shoulders that nothing, not even her own life, meant as much to her as the Djinn's good opinion.

He despairs of her then. Despairs for her; for he sees clearly now what her words, hampered by the twin barriers of language and culture, had not been able to convey before. This Rose, the brave heroine of his dove's many tales, had loved the Djinn. And that, he knows with a sad certainty, spells her fate. She loved him as she should have loved a man, a _normal_ man. Even that worthless pile of camel dung from her home village who thought himself worthy of being her consort would have been a better choice, a safer choice. To love an agent of mayhem…one of the great, untamable forces of the universe…it was unthinkable…impossible. One might as well be enamored with a flit of wind or an errant ocean wave. But no, those metaphors were far too benign. To love the sandstorm that barrels down upon king and commoner alike, bringing violent stinging death to all in its path - that was a more apt comparison. Or a maelstrom, whose riptides drag vessels inexorably towards its insatiable maw as despairing sailors look helplessly on from the gunwales. He too sees that inevitable, swirling doom, feels it draw his pretty little dove into its clutches and hold her fast. Her fate would be almost too terrible to behold, but like those imagined sailors, he remains transfixed by the power of her tale. Can do nothing but continue to watch her play out her self-destruction. As if she were a siren and he entranced by the very sound of her voice.

"He's good, the Djinn," she goes on, failing to notice the sudden darkness descended upon his features like a trained falcon swooping to its master's gauntlet. "And Rose trusted him. Trusted him with her life. And if…and if he thought that she needed to lose her life to help save the world, well…she trusted him to make that decision on her behalf." She finishes and nods her head, as if agreeing silently with herself.

"'I could save the world, but lose you,' that's what the Djinn said to her. And she couldn't believe he'd even_ think _that," she goes on, mirroring his own mild incredulity. "'Cause if it were true, if it really were her versus the world…well, I mean, that's no choice is it?" She shakes her head with a determination that matches her suddenly stony look. "Nope, gotta go with the world. Every time. And there he was talkin' like there was some kind of…_option_." Her brown eyes are wide beneath trembling lashes as she looks up at him, looks up to him, searching for concurrence. She raises her arms, palms held flat and facing up before her, as if weighing two options. "The Earth," she says, lowering her right hand. "Six gajillion people and the whole flippin' fate of humanity." Her hand slides to rest against the floor tiles. "And one silly, bleached blonde London chav," she adds, proffering her left hand towards him, before closing it to a fist and letting it fall.

She turns away from him. "It doesn't make sense," she says, more than half to herself, her attention focused on one of the slave boys lining the chamber walls. He sees that she is searching for an answer and wonders why she thinks that she might find it there. He never notices the slaves himself, they have become an intrinsic part of the background. No doubt he would not be able to tell this particular one from the next, though he had likely attended upon his master in these chambers for years. The palm fan in his grip dips and rises, its rhythm never failing.

"The ancient Agypt," he starts gently, drawing her awareness back onto himself, "It is said, believed the gods would weigh their hearts against a feather." He tilts his head to one side in his consideration of her. "An impossible test, but the Agypt did not fear overmuch the fate that awaited those who failed. Perhaps they understood that only gods can know the true value of the human heart."

"Well that or they used a really heavy feather," the girl added dryly.

He blinks at her, then laughs. He cannot help himself, he laughs aloud. She beams a smile in return, knowing for once that he is not laughing at her, at her poor manners or atrocious translation, but with her.

"What happened to them?" she asks, as the hilarity dies from his voice.

"To whom, my dove?"

"The ones who failed. The ones whose hearts were too heavy?"

He considers her. It is an interesting question. Women, in his experience are not much interested in philosophy. The women of his own lands were only taught so much of religion as to allow them to follow the teachings. The higher questions were left to the men, as the divine heads of their households. But she has put him in a good humor, and in response he decides to oblige her. "Their souls were fed to a horrible beast that was described as being part lion, part crocodile and part hippopotamus."

Shock can be read plainly on her face, before it dissolves into thought. "Why a hippo?" she asks.

"My dove, have you never seen a hippopotamus in full fury?" he replies aghast.

"Well, no," she says, a tiny vertical wrinkle appearing between her brows. "I guess I just never thought of them being all that threatening. They always seemed kind of cute."

He shakes his head in disbelief. To think she has so little knowledge of the world! And with such naive ideas about appearances, no wonder she became enamored with a demon being. She trusted from the beginning that he would not harm her because he seemed to her a regular person. She never attempted to pull back that innocent façade, if she had she would certainly have seen the monster beneath. "Not everything dangerous," he admonishes darkly, "Proclaims its hazard outright. Sometimes evil hides itself behind an exquisite mask, the better to draw in its prey."

He catches his breath, hearing the harshness of his own words, and pinches his lip between sharp teeth. He looks away from the girl so that he will not see her questioning gaze. These are thoughts he should not be having. Thoughts he promised himself he would not have again. Thoughts of beauty dancing unveiled before him, dancing only for him.

Or so he had believed.

"Like the Slitheen," she says, bringing him back to the present, and more importantly, back to her tale.

He looks at her, "I suppose. Why do you not continue?"

"Right," she said firmly, before muttering, "Where was I?" Her hand rises unconsciously towards her mouth and he wonders if she will bite at her thumb as she is wont to do. She pauses, noticing the intricate marks decorating the back of her hand, and stops. He sees them too, clearly now as her hand is held before her. The sepia whorls and spirals mimicking organic growth, the twirl and intertwining of tiny-leaved vines. Images of untamed life tangled between her fingers. The repeated image of a circle twisted upon itself to form two teardrops, touching at their tips. A figure of eight, flatted somewhat end to end. He recognizes the symbol, though it is not one often used in this form of artwork. He knows not its origins (the Ionians claim its derivation, but then they claim responsibility for everything if allowed to talk at length), but he knows the meaning ascribed to it. Infinity. Perpetuity.

Forever.

In mathematics, it is the number without end; in art, the point at which all lines converge. It can mean life eternal, as well, that existence which transcends the passing of the mortal form. He has heard his court philosophers debate its existence. Personally, he believes it something only the One God may know for certain, like the weight of a human heart; its true substance and not the base flesh the Agypt ripped from the chests of their dead before sending them off to their judgment.

It must have been her choice to put it there, his beautiful dove. No idle palace woman with a busy paint pot would think to include it in the design. It is an interesting choice. A good choice, he thinks, and recalls that, in some of the Eastern lands, the decoration of palms is a part of the marriage ceremony. He wonders if his dove knows that. Doubts it. For all her travels, she seems to have led a sheltered life, so little knowledge has she of the world and its ways. He wonders why she would choose such an esoteric marking to adorn herself with. He thinks of the Djinn, and believes he understands.

Her hand drops. She follows its slow progress until it floats to rest upon her knee. "Forgive me, my Lord," she says, raising her eyes to his finally, "But I have lost my place in the story."

Her penitence is heartfelt and endearing. "Fret not my dove, it is of little consequence." He smiles, knowingly, "But I believe we were speaking of Rose's trust."


	6. Chapter 6

Donna was beginning to get annoyed.

It's wasn't as though she'd never been imprisoned before. Since she'd started traveling with the Doctor she'd learned that the universe was home to a great, vast variety of incarcerations. It was a hazard of the job. However, she'd never before been imprisoned by member of her own species; and on her home planet no less! She expected better from Earthlings and had half a mind to complain to the American government. She felt certain there was something in their laws about false imprisonment. Or was that a speedy trial? Whatever. The point was that there was one place in the entire universe where she was supposed to feel safe (well, outside of the TARDIS, that was), and here it had turned out not to be. Bloody alien with his insistence that butlers were really orcs in disguise. Bloody time machine that never landed them where it was supposed to. Bloody Americans with their lame excuse for a prison cell, which even she had to admit was a good deal nicer than the majority of the off-world cells in which she'd been forced to cool her heels.

Donna stomped said heels into the stone floor, before kicking off her flats and pulling her legs up into a sitting position on the bed. She leaned back until her shoulders rested against the cold, seamless wall and stared at the blank surface opposite her. The addition of the bed was nice, though she half suspected she'd never get any kind of restful sleep on its thin mattress. It was covered in a patterned duvet and there was a feather pillow at its head encased in crisp white linen. The whole room was very clean, no dust or cobwebs could be discerned. The garbage bin set next to the nightstand had been emptied of its contents before she came. She had already checked the contents of the side table's drawers and found not even a Gideon's bible to comfort her. It did was certainly curious that the cell had a nightstand, but no toilet. It seemed almost more like a guest room than a prison room. But then, what guest could be comfortable wedged between the cold stone walls of this tiny space?

A deep, booming knock at the heavy oak door dragged her out of her reverie.

Donna looked at the door. It was locked. She knew it was locked because she had spent the first twenty minutes of her imprisonment trying to jimmy it open with a hairpin. Eventually she had to give up and admit that seeing it done on the telly was no substitute for actually knowing how to pick locks. So, given that she was 100% at the mercy of her wardens, why would they bother to knock upon the door which only they had the ability to open? "Ummm…" she started, confusedly. "Come in?"

The latch slid back with a thud and the door squeaked open. A thin young woman in tight jeans and an even tighter t-shirt entered the cell. She had bright red hair, too short and flyaway to be considered a bob, but just a little too long for a classic pixie cut. Bright, intelligent eyes lit her elfin features. A silk scarf was looped around her throat like a choker and tied into a little rosette that rested at the angle of her neck and shoulder.

"Hiya!" she said, waving at Donna with one hand while closing the door with the other. Donna noted that she didn't lock it behind her, and remained silent. The woman strode forward, her hand extended in a friendly manner. "You're Donna, right? I'm Rose."

Donna had been looking with some trepidation at the woman's proffered palm, but at this her eyes darted to the woman's face. Slowly, she took the woman's hand and suffered through a hearty shake. "You…you're not the Doctor's Rose, are you?"

Donna didn't need a reply. The woman's complete lack of reaction at hearing the Doctor's name was evidence enough that she had never stepped anywhere near a TARDIS. "Honey," the woman said, dropping Donna's hand and lowering herself onto the bed next to her, "I'm not any man's Rose." It was a bold statement, and though Donna noted that it didn't really answer her question, she couldn't help but smile at the woman. It was the sort of comment she thoroughly agreed with. Seeing her smile, Rose relaxed a bit and pulled her coltish legs up to sit Indian style on the mattress. "But I wouldn't say no to a doctor," she amended. "Are you talking about that friend of yours? The cute guy with the suit and the sexy hair?"

Donna snorted in amusement. "Cute? No, we must be speaking of different people."

Rose smiled. "You don't think so?"

"Nah, too skinny. I like a man with a little meat on him."

"Hmmm…." Rose pondered, "There is something to be said for a man with . . . substance." She cupped her hands before her and twitched her fingers as if squeezing at an imaginary bum. Donna snorted again. "But you have to admit," Rose continued, her eyes dancing with mirth, "He does have great hair."

Rose's smile was infectious. Despite her suspicisions, despite the fact that this woman and her friends were holding both herself and the Doctor hostage, Donna couldn't help but trust her open and honest nature. "Yeah, well, if you knew how much time he spends at it." Donna rolled her eyes.

Rose reached out and swept a loose, crimson lock behind Donna's ear. "You have some rather pretty hair yourself."

Donna colored involuntarily. People usually didn't notice her hair, they never got past her dumpy shape and her in your face attitude. Personally, she thought it her best feature. She turned slightly away from the other woman and self consciously tucked in a lock that had come free at her opposite temple. "Thanks," she said, "You too."

Rose primped for a moment at her own coiffure. "Oh, you like?" she asked teasingly, before rolling her eyes. "It's my signature look. The one that says 'I work on a farm and don't have time for style.'"

"You work on a farm?" Donna asked, curious. Rose nodded. "In New York?!"

"Upstate," Rose explained, still nodding. "Not in the city, of course. No, I'm only down for the day to help my sister out with a few…issues."

Donna sensed that, for the first time since she entered the room, her new acquaintance was uncomfortable with the subject. She made a mental note not to press Rose on the particulars of those "issues"; then immediately scratched out her note and revised it to read that this woman was _not_ her friend, Donna was not acting as a confidant, and she should most assuredly try to pry the particulars of any "issues" from between her firmly closed lips. "Oh," she responded searchingly, "Like what?"

Something in her demeanor must have alerted Rose to the reversal in her thoughts. Rose's shoulders slumped. "You don't trust me, do you?" she said, dejectedly. Donna quirked her mouth in response and shook her head slightly in denial. She liked the girl, she really did, but these people had dragged the Doctor away from her…and that made them her enemy. For now, anyway. Rose sighed. "And why should you? I mean, here you are locked up in the Cloisters; probably the least comfortable accommodation in all of the Woodlands. And I _was_ sent here to interrogate you." Donna's eyebrows jumped in surprise at her admission. Rose tossed her hands with an air of defeat. "I told Bigby I wasn't cut out for this sort of thing, but he said you'd probably respond better to a _feminine touch_." Rose said the last with a sneer that showed exactly what she thought of femininity. She looked away and crossed her arms. "Why he couldn't ask Cindy to do it I'll never know."

"Bigby?" Donna queried quietly.

Rose returned her attention to the room's other occupant. "He's the town sheriff. He'll be questioning that doctor friend of yours right now, and I doubt he's being as nice about it as I am." She shook her head angrily.

"They're not…" Donna couldn't finish the thought. She had the utmost confidence in the Doctor's being able to survive any form of torture these people could possibly think to dish out, but at the same time she couldn't imagine her dearest friend being exposed to such horrors.

Rose smiled encouragingly and reached a hand out to caress Donna's shoulder. "Don't worry, he'll be fine. We're not monsters, you know…well…" She seemed on the point of saying something else, but thought better of it. Changing tacks, she continued, "Bigby can be a bit caustic at times, but he's fair. If you two do turn out to be spies he'll come down on you like a ton of bricks, but if you're not…" She shrugged.

"Spies?" Donna continued. She couldn't believe how this woman was just answering her questions. Wasn't this interrogation supposed to be going the other way around?

Rose reached around behind her and brought the pillow forward. Arranging in on her crossed knees, she leaned forward and planted her elbows in its puffy surface. Resting her chin in her hands, she appraised Donna carefully. "Look, I probably shouldn't be telling you any of this, but. . ." Rose made a movement that approximated a shrug, "You two are not the only recent visitors to our part of town. A woman showed up just a few days ago; red hair like yours, but younger and . . . well, let's just say she turned out to be a little less than friendly." Something went cold and hard in Rose's eyes and Donna was left with an uncomfortable reminder of the Doctor. "She's responsible for some friends of mine getting hurt. One probably had it coming, but the other…" Rose's head shook in her hands. "He deserves better. Much better."

Donna paused a moment, wondering if she should prompt the girl. Ask for particulars of what happened to her friends. Instead, Donna found herself going back to the circumstances of her own predicament. "So, you think we're like this ginger bird who hurt your friends?"

"Bigby does," Rose said, removing her head from her hands and sitting up straight. "And he calls the shots around here…when my sister's busy, that is."

Rose's sister was someone important. Donna filed that piece of information away for later. "And you?" she asked innocently.

Rose considered her for a moment. Donna could almost feel her eyes as they roamed over her form. Then, apparently coming to a decision, Rose tossed her head and said, "Nope."

"No?"

Rose's smile was self-deprecating, and a little sad. "I've hung around with a lot of bad people. Dated more than a few. Was engaged to one once." She shook her head, half in embarrassment and half in anger. "You're not them," she said with authority.

"Oh." Donna didn't know what else to say. "You know I've known some pretty bad people in my past too." Rose turned a sharp and wary eyed look in her direction. "Not…not me," Donna stammered, suddenly afraid of losing the little ground she had just gained. "Or the Doctor. No he's good. Very good. We're good. It's just…" She had to smile wistfully herself, thinking of all the strange adventures the two of them had been on. Maniacal nannies. Homicidal bees. Whatever that thing was that had scared the pants off of the Doctor on Midnight. "Think I've gotten a pretty good idea of what makes a bad person myself. And heck, I was engaged to one once, too. Was halfway down the aisle, actually. Bloody wanker." She doesn't need to force her smile at that. It's funny, at one time she thought she very well might go mad thinking about her interrupted matrimony; now she could only think how happy she was that fate had chosen that very moment to intervene. "And you're not it, either. Bad, that is," she finished, somewhat lamely.

"Thanks," Rose replied. Then with a wry smile, added, "You'd have a hard time convincing my sister of that."

"Oh, go on," Donna said, her tone turning conspiratorial. She reached out a hand and pushed teasingly at Rose's shoulder.

"I mean it," Rose groused. "You listen to her you start thinking I'm some sorta bad seed."

"Yeah, but, I'm sure she means well." Rose looked quizzically at her. "I mean, my mum, yeah? Don't think she's ever said one nice thing about me my entire life. But I know she loves me, and I love her. And in the end, they're all you have, really. Family?" Nodding her head in affirmation of her own statement, she continued, "Blood."

"Oh! That reminds me!" Rose suddenly jumped to her feet. Squeezing her hand into a front jeans pocket, she pulled out a number of small objects in a little plastic baggie. "Here," she said holding the contents out to Donna, "We're gonna need some of your blood."

"You're what?!" Donna screeched, coming to her feet herself.

"It's no big deal," Rose said calmly, "Just a little prick of your finger and put a drop in the tube, that's all. Like going to the doctor's office."

Donna looked down at the instruments in Rose's palm. There was a needle and a tiny plastic tube. Nothing overtly threatening. "You…you want a drop of my blood?" Rose nodded. "Why?" Donna drew the word out questioningly.

"It's just…" Rose seemed at a loss to describe her reasoning. "It's for identification purposes…if you can believe that." She smiled crookedly at Donna, giving the impression that she was fully convinced that Donna would, in fact, not believe that.

Donna considered a moment. Traveling the universe had taught her never to take anything anyone said at face value. But it had also, she thought with some pride, taught her that she had pretty good insight into other people's natures. She had meant what she said. Rose was not bad. Donna was all but certain of it, and she wanted to trust her. Every instinct told her she _should_ trust this woman. It was only the situation they had been thrown into (apparently against both their wills) which was forcing her not to. But then, Rose had been forthcoming with answers to Donna's questions when she had no need to be. She'd talked. She'd shared. Donna bit her lip, and decided.

Trust had to come from somewhere.

"Okay," she surrendered, reaching for the medical equipment.

A look of profound relief crossed Rose's face. "Thanks," she said. "Really, I mean it. We're not bad people. And once Bigby confirms you're not…working for the other side, well…I'm sure you and your friend will be released right away."

While she continued to thank Donna and apologize for the inconvenience and the tiny room and the like, Donna got started with the pricking. A sharp jab at her pointer finger brought a ruby-like bubble of blood to the surface of her fingerprint. Scraping her finger against the edge of the tube, she allowed several drops to slide along its plastic sides and pool at the little pointed bottom. She popped her finger into her mouth and held the now capped tube out towards Rose. "'Ere," she said, talking around her finger and making her accent even more unintelligible. "D'nation. Don' spedit all in un plays."

"I won't," Rose replied, with an awkward tilt of her head. "And I'll put in a good word with my sister for you and your friend." Donna nodded, knowing further communication would really need to wait until her digit stopped bleeding.

Rose turned on her heel and headed for the door. Stopping with her hand on the knob, she turned back over her shoulder and regarded Donna with a friendly look. "We redheads need to stick together."


	7. Chapter 7

Her back no longer hunches when she genuflects, and he thinks that it must be because someone in his household has finally taught her to do it properly. Either that or she has finally gotten over her particularly foreign dislike of bending her will to that of her superiors. Like as not, it is a bit of both. He smiles to think of her frail northern frame adapting to the sweet desert climate of his homeland, and bids her rise.

She pushes herself up, palms pressed flat against the smooth tile beneath her, and levels her head to face him without disturbing the exacting placement of her veil. Ah yes, his dove has learned, and if she cannot prevent the jewel like beads of sweat from making a coronet of her brow, she makes no movement to swipe them away. The sweet and spicy scent of her fragrance floats about the chamber, blown about by the slave boys, busy as always at their fanning. Her lips have been touched with carmine, adding just enough color to darken them from their normal dusky pink hue to the color of ripening plums. He wonders, absently, if the women sharing her captivity have offered her these luxuries of their own volition, or whether she has traded for them. The thought of her bartering with the other women like a common bazaar peddler darkens his brow. What would she even have to trade? Extra food, perhaps? Certainly, she does not need the suppers prepared for her when each night she shares in his own feast.

Seeing his stormy look, she lowers her eyes, and asks with great tentativeness, "My Lord, have I offended thee?"

He breathes slowly and takes in her fine appearance. She is dressed in green tonight, the dull green of the harbor waters on a cloudy day. Her hands rest against her thighs, palms cupped upwards like a lotus. It is the position of a servant at ease, and he wonders who has taught her that as well; perhaps the same individuals who have helped her to improve her Arabic over these long months. The accent and intonation are still atrocious, but she rarely misses a tense nowadays, and finds the need to retreat into her own language less and less every day.

He half smiles, to put her at her ease. "No my dove, you have not," he assures her. However, he cannot help but again think of her interacting with the other women. He imagines them squabbling like hens, screeching their laughter and clucking their sympathy from where they perched upon silken pillows. Ducking their heads with alacrity to catch the most recent whispers of palace rumor. Surely, too, they must peck at one another and fight for what little favors life in the bridal chamber may provide. It is no place for a little half-tame dove, that is certain, and his brow creases again with the thought. Perhaps he should move her into her own apartments.

"Then what troubles you, my Lord?" she asks, startling him from his reverie. She should not presume, of course, to know his mind, but then he supposes that in this instance she is correct. No doubt his countenance has betrayed his emotions. He has been dwelling on unpleasant thoughts and images when he should be reveling in the myriad beauties of his dove's foreign world. Still he cannot quite retrieve his hunger, and he wonders if she has eaten this eve.

"My dove, are you hungry?" he asks, pointedly changing the subject and unwinding his legs from their seated position. She shakes her head in denial, and he is unaccountably pleased to see it. "Then might we repair to the courtyard and take the night air."

"Of course, my Lord," she states with confidence, though he knows he has surprised her with his request, and she raises herself after him to stand, head bowed, in a tone of deference beside him. Smiling softly he leads the way.

The guards at the main entrance raise their pikes from their crossed positions blocking the doorway as he and his dove pass the threshold. Without batting an eyelash, the soldiers fall into step behind his dove as the group makes its way over the lush carpeted floor towards the palace gardens. This hall is particularly well decorated, as it is often used in entertainment of dignitaries. One cannot go ten steps without passing some new and beautiful work of art, or a well polished spoil of war. Shields gleam between vibrant tapestries and tall vases filled with fresh flowers. It is summer, and flowers are plentiful in the lands touched by the great rivers. Outside the borders of the flood all is sand and desolation. Here within the walls of the palace, flowers bloom in abundant profusion the whole year round. What he is taking his dove to see now is one of the hidden secrets of his castle; the inner courtyard closed to all but those of his house, and tended by hereditary gardeners who passed their craft down from father to son in generations of his family's service.

He walks beneath an arch flanked on both sides with Doric columns and painted along its curve in a checkered pattern of blood red alternating with the fine yellow sandstone beneath. Beyond is the night garden, and a freedom of sorts. A fresh breeze skims swiftly over the high walls and hurries past, to skip into the corridor behind him. His dove gasps, and he knows it is not all form the sudden chill. He cannot help but turn, turn to see the look of unadulterated awe spread across her features. He wonders when it last was she tasted open air and feels a twinge of sadness to think that he has inadvertently kept such joy from her. He will not make that mistake again. Turning, he begins to make a circuit of the winding garden path and his dove follows on silent feet.

"Now," he says, breathing deeply in the scent of jasmine and angel's trumpet, "You were speaking before of the Djinn and the Captain on the fifth metal moon."

"Of course," she says, nodding. She thinks a moment, obviously trying to remember exactly where in her tale she had left off. It was, he notes, a crucial moment. The Djinn had only just determined that the enemy they had been focused upon was not that which he had originally thought, but rather was his ancient foe the _Daleks_.

He has been forced to adopt her word for that strange race. It appears to have no direct translation and its harsh, foreign rasp grates upon his ear in a manner that seems strangely appropriate to the species. He had asked her to describe them, at first, but was baffled by her garbled explanation. They could not step up, but they could fly. They had not hands, but used weapons of great destruction. Beyond the terror inducing squawk of their voices and their single blue eye that glowed with a lust to kill like some bloodthirsty Cyclops out of legend, he had been unable to drag out any more discernable details. He had asked her to draw one and provided her with parchment and charcoal. She had made a valiant attempt, but her drawing came out looking like nothing more than the lighthouses that stood sentinel over the rocky shores of the great sea. ""M sorry," she had said, shaking her head at the poor likeness she created. And then, quietly, "The Doctor would have done it better."

He burned the parchment and assigned a drawing instructor to attend upon her during her daylight hours.

"The Djinn," she says, breaking him from his reverie, "Said that he had a plan, and though Rose did not believe him, she trusted him entirely. Trusted him with her life. And so when the Djinn told her to enter the Box, she did. Without question." She raises her head proudly, and the moonlight glints in the tiny jewels draped across her forehead and dripping like blood from her ears. "But once she was inside, the doors closed behind her. She tried to open them, but they were locked. She pounded on the door, yelling for the Djinn. Begging him to tell her what was going on. And that's when she heard it…his voice. She turned around and the Djinn was there. Only, it wasn't him, but his image. And it was talking to her. 'Rose,' it said," and here she switches to her native language and affects a deep voice and a strange accent, "'This is Emergency Program One.'"

She pauses, and he allows her the time to compose herself and return to her former mode of speaking. "The Djinn told Rose that the program would only activate if he was dead or about to die. He told her there was no way she could save him and that she had to save herself. He said that the Box would take her home, back to her own time and that she should just leave it somewhere to…to rot." She looks away, pretends to be interested in the designs painted on a planted urn. "Rose, couldn't do that," she asserts, and no, of course she couldn't. The Box had been her home and, from what his dove had told him, seemed almost to have been a friend to the erstwhile heroine. Rose would had to have a heart of stone to do as the Djinn asked of her, and he knew his dove's heart too well to think such ill of her. "Then the Djinn told Rose to have a fantastic life and he disappeared. Rose didn't know what to do. She didn't know how to drive the Box. She tried everything she could think of, but nothing worked, and before she knew it she was standing outside of her home and her mother and Mickey were hugging her."

She stops, comes to a halt in the middle of the walkway and bites at her lower lip. She releases it, leaving an indentation that is slightly lighter in color than the rosy-hued surrounding flesh. "I…" she stutters, still uncomfortable including herself as a participant in her stories. "I don't know what happened then, to the Djinn or the Captain. It must have been horrible for them, trapped on the fifth moon, but…" She shakes her head as her voice trails away.

"Then tell what you do know," he insists.

She looks at him, eyes wide and innocent in the starlight. "Rose couldn't have a fantastic life. Not without knowing what happened to her friends. Not with knowing the Djinn was still out there somewhere…some when, I mean…fighting for survival…fighting for the future of…well…everyone." It has been some time since she has had this great a difficulty speaking, and he knows it is not from a lack of knowledge or understanding. She is no orator, no master of fine words, and she does not know how to frame this situation properly. "She convinced her mother and Mickey to help her open the bowels of the Box, and she looked inside as Blon the Smelly Green Lizard Monster had done. She looked at the heart of the Box and saw….she saw…"

As if taken by a sudden notion of escape, she steps quickly away from the path and towards the marble centerpiece of the garden. He thinks to call out to her, but decides instead to follow in her footsteps. Stopping short of the fountain, she turns her face to the heavens. She spins in place, taking in the entire star-specked dome. Her arms flare out at her sides as if pulled by the silken twirl of her verdant robes. He stands back, giving her this moment; giving her the room to enjoy the night sky. Eventually, she returns her gaze to earth.

"What?" he whispers, feeling as though he is intruding on something special, almost…sacred. "What did Rose see?"

"Everything," she says seriously, and before he can ask for a clarification, she continues. "The beginning and the end. All the little bits in between. She saw the words "Bad Wolf", left for herself across time and space as a message. She saw herself leave the message, scattering it across the universe for her own benefit. She saw the Bad Wolf, and the Bad Wolf saw her, and in that moment," she sighs inwardly, "They became one."

She lowers herself to sit on the edge of the fountain. Looking over one shoulder, she glances down at her own reflection. Behind it, grey clouds encircle the bright globe of the moon. "I…Rose couldn't remember much of the time that followed. She only knew that the Djinn needed help, and that the Bad Wolf had the power to help and…" Her hands raise themselves palms upwards, as if she had no control over the course of her tale or Rose or this mysterious, powerful, all-knowing Bad Wolf. "She helped," she explains, "The Bad Wolf helped and there was singing. Such a beautiful song." A circle of ripples appears suddenly in the flat surface of the pool, spreading and multiplying until the moon and the clouds and his dove's reflection waver into oblivion. He never saw the single tear which had so marred the watery image. "The song of the universe," she whispers.

There is no sound for some time afterwards. Even the night creatures seem to halt their buzzing speech in honor of the dove's song and its memory. Eventually, he holds out a hand to her. Surprised by his action, she does not even think of the breached proprieties when she reaches up to take it. He pulls her gently to her feet and leads her back to the path. There, the sound of hissing torches lining the palace walls brings them out of the past and back to reality.

"When Rose came to, the Djinn was acting strangely." He gives her a meaningful look. "Stranger than normal, I mean," she laughs. "He looked like he was in pain, like he was hurt. And he was talking quickly about…well, about a lot of things…things that didn't make sense." She shakes her head, though whether in amusement or dismay, he cannot tell. "He said that he wanted to take Rose to Barcelona – the planet not the city-" she clarifies needlessly. He has never heard of either place. "Where they have dogs with no noses, apparently. And he said he was going to have to change, but then he wouldn't tell her what he meant by that."

She rubs her hands up her arms until they meet the cuffs of her short sleeves. She slows to a stop and he wonders if she will take off into the garden again. She is examining the soft green fabric of her slippers. He stares at the proffered top of her head. Beneath the filmy veil, he can see the dark part separating the gold of her hair. "He said…he said that she was _fantastic_." One toe scuffs against the flagstone. "And so was he," she whispers.

Her face lifts to his, and a deep sigh fills her voice. "And then the Djinn exploded in a flash of red fireworks."

He blinks. "What?!" Her flippant attitude towards the Djinn's apparent destruction is completely at odds with everything else he knows about her. "The Djinn…he…was killed?"

"Yes," she says simply, "And no. Not exactly. He died, but…there's this trick he has, you see, when he's about to die. Wish he'd told me about that earlier, mind, but that's not the point. Point is that when Rose could see again, after all the light he…the Djinn was still standing there, but…he was…someone else."

"Someone…else?" he asks again, thoroughly confused.

"He didn't look like the Djinn anymore. He was skinnier." Her brows pinch together in thought, and she slips back into her own language in her confusion. "And he had hair. And brown eyes and new teeth. Plus he was suddenly an incurable chatterbox." She smiled at that. "He was someone totally different, in looks, voice and manner. Everything. But he was still the Doc- the Djinn," she corrects herself. "He was still the Djinn, though it would take a while for Rose to figure that part out."

He has a thousand questions, but he holds them back. She sees them anyways, ghosting in his eyes, and she does not continue. She stands there in the torchlight, rubbing the goose bumps from her forearms and waiting for him to arrange his thoughts.

The change of face is of little note. The djinni, it is well known, are masters of disguise. They could appear as a great monarch, or a beautiful woman, or even a lowly ass should the fancy take them. But to die and come back, that truly was an accomplishment! In the stories, djinni never died, but were tricked into submission or into self-imposed exile. Had he not decided beforehand from his dove's stories that Rose's Djinn – no, he corrects himself mentally, _her_ Djinn - was of a most uncommon sort, this would convince him fully.

How scared she must have been, his little dove, how confused. He sees it now in the seemingly brave tilt of her chin, in the way she holds her tears inside her like a proper lady of court. He knows what it is to see people change; to have ones you _thought_ you knew so well turn to strangers before your eyes. It is true that all who live wear a mask before friends and foe alike, but it is only the former who are ever deceived into thinking they know the true person beneath. He abhors such deception, despises treachery above all things, and it is one of the reasons he finds his dove so enthralling. Whatever she has told him, whatever fantasies she has woven with words like fine tapestry, he has always believed that she tells the truth. There is no veil which shades her true features. She has no use for one, and he finds her fresh faced honesty entrancing.

He continues down the path, folding his arms behind him in contemplation. She pads along, a half step behind him. "What you speak of," he notes softly in highborn Arabic, "Is not entirely unknown here." Her eyes widen at his words and her step falters momentarily, so that she must take a quick stuttering skip to keep abreast of him on the path. "Certainly," he goes on, "The followers of the dying god speak often of his resurrection and transformation and believe such stories to be true. Then, too, the Great Lion was said by his followers to have died at the hands of traitors, only to rise again."

"The…the Great Lion?" she asks, and he senses in her a hesitancy he has not seen now for many months. It is an unexpected emotion. He is reminded somewhat fondly of when she first came to his chambers, trembling and afraid, with not even the ability to ask, in his own tongue, after his intentions. In the pale light from the gibbous moon trickling through the crooked branches of the olive trees, her hair is silver, trending to white. Her face is ghostly pale, but the barest bloom of pink colors her cheeks. She is of a more healthy pallor now, her skin having taken on the color of cream in coffee and no longer peeling from the ravages of his harsh southern sun. Her strides match his own and she walks with a high held head and a confident manner. She has grown, he sees, since their first tentative audience, and he finds himself unaccountably touched at seeing how she has thrived in his palace. No longer the frail orchid blossom wilting on his chamber floor, she has come into her own. She certainly is worthy of the moniker of her heroine. The delicate rose. The hearty rose. The beautiful rose.

He thinks for a moment, that he would like to see her decked in such flowers. To see her ivory limbs and flaxen hair, draped naked and languorous over a bower strewn with petals. Her pink lips pressed reverently to a half opened bud, her marble fingers wrapped around its prickly stem.

Oh, how he would like to have those silken fingers wrapped around other things.

But no, now was not the time for such thoughts. Now was the time for stories and strolls in the cool evening air; for the soft splashing music of the fountain and the whistle of night breezes through the trees. Heat and fire and passion had their place, but not in the courtyard; though certainly none would reprimand him for violating its peaceful sanctity. Too, she has asked him a question, and he feels compelled to reply.

"The Great Lion was sovereign over lands far away from here, so far that we barely hear tell of them. But back before the coming of the Emperor there were many travelers between the worlds, and the old stories are still told." He sees her tip her head at this latest revelation, sees her face draw itself into the considering look which means that she is trying to piece information together. He knows her so well, his dove. So well already. He would know her better soon. Eventually. Know her in all her bountiful glory. As soon as her story was done. "He ruled a world populated by beasts to whom was granted the power of speech; and yes, some humans too, who were reckoned the kings and queens of his lands."

She has turned towards him, listening, and he is amused at this, the reversal of their roles. He has become the storyteller and she the rapt attendee. She is silent, and he hears the soft scuffing noises of their slippers against the flagstones. "They say an evil witch-woman stabbed him through the heart, but that his soul was pure, and so he lived again and crushed the witch into the earth with his giant paws."

The little dove's eyes widened, liquid and dark in the faint light from the firmament. "I…I think, my Lord, that I know this story," she says, with something like awe coloring her voice and he stops abruptly at her revelation.

"My dove," he asks, "Did you perhaps pass through the lands of the Lion on your trek? We have thought them lost, these many centuries past, yet I have heard tell it was once a wondrous place."

"No," she shakes her head. Her brow is creased again with the effort of her thought, and the effect is not appealing. He shall mention it to his harem matron, it seems someone must still teach the poor creature how to school her features to pleasantness. Women, he muses, are not naturally given to deep thought. His dove is an unfortunate exception and it has left its ravages in the barely discernable wrinkles on her silken face. He cannot have her wandering the palace grounds thus, looking like nothing more than one of his scholars working at some complex theorem. "At least, I don't think so. No, I mean that I read it. A long time ago, in the land from which I originally came." The unsightly creases flatten out, and the familiar, dreamy look returns to her features. With her attention so obviously elsewhere, she slips unconsciously into her speech of origin again. "It's a children's book, right? About these kids who find this wardrobe that, like, takes them to another world. And there's a lion and a witch…just like you said."

She turns away, slightly, letting her glance flow like a wisp of night air around the fragrant reaches of the patio. "I don't really remember much else, but. . ." her head whips suddenly towards him, "You're saying it's real? All of it?"

'What is real?' he thinks to ask her, truly curious about the philosophical beliefs of a woman who claims to have traveled amongst the stars; to have broken the bonds of time itself. "What is a wardrobe?" he asks instead.

She blinks. "It's a…it's like a closet, yeah?" She seems uncomfortable at her explanation; as if she thinks he'll doubt her. As if even now, after all the stories, after all the nights spent in his presence, she still thinks she fails his trust. He does not comment. Portals to other worlds may take on many shapes, a closet is no more strange than any other he has heard of, and considerably less so than some.

"Perhaps it is the same place," he muses, "For if you, child, can find your way to my domain, then why could not others from your world stumble upon the realm of the Great Lion?"

"So it is real," she breathes, her excitement evident in the tense carriage of her shoulders. They have not talked like this often, he generally being content to listen to her tales, but seeing her face now, seeing the life suffusing her features with the moonlight, he wonders why they have not done so. She is lovely in her fascination, a blind man would see it, and he resolves to converse with her like this more in the future.

"Yes, my dove," he cannot help but smile down at her, "As real as you or I."


	8. Chapter 8

The bolt on the door opened with a clang and the Doctor was thrust unceremoniously through the portal. Stumbling, he managed to catch himself before crashing to the stone flagged floor.

"Doctor!" cried Donna, rising to her feet in alarm. "Are you all right?!"

He turned to her, and a smile broke over his face at seeing her whole and apparently unharmed. He straightened, then clasped his hands behind himself and stretched backwards until Donna heard the tell-tale pop from between his shoulder blades. "Oh, tolerably well," he sighed, rolling his head on his shoulders. "As bouts of torturous interrogation go it was pretty tame, but I have to say I'm not too eager to face that sheriff again. Nasty sort, him. You all right?"

Donna blinked at his rapid turning back of the subject upon her. "Yeah, I'm okay. They sent this girl to talk to me, but she didn't…did you say torture?"

"Only joking," he said, although there was a darkness in his voice that suggested otherwise. He turned to the blank walls surrounding them and began running his hands over their smooth surface in an exploratory manner. "Our hosts may not have been the most _gracious_ of captors, but they fall a good deal short of abusive. No, no…a few harsh demands under a hot yellow light bulb are nothing to complain about…rather film noir, actually." He came to a corner and felt up and down along its length, obviously trying to find a seam. "Still, doesn't help our case that they seem uber-paranoid about outsiders."

Donna sat down on the bed again, her hands clasped nervously in her lap. She had already checked the room for potential means of escape, but didn't feel the need to enlighten the Doctor as to that fact. Besides, she was fairly certain he had a number of senses to employ in the task that she lacked completely. "Rose – that was the name of the ginger girl who was supposed to interrogate me – she said they were looking for spies." The Doctor turned to her, brows raised in interest. "She didn't say spies for whom, though."

The Doctor's nose wrinkled as he concentrated, though apparently not on the subject Donna expected him to be focusing on. "Rose?" he asked. "And she was ginger? Rose the Red. Huh, funny that." There was a sarcastic buzz to his voice which made Donna think he didn't find it at all funny. He turned back to his search saying, in a lighter tone, "Well, sounds like you had a much better time of it than I did."

"She was nice," Donna asserted. "I like her. Except for the part where she's keeping us locked up in a drafty cell." The Doctor moved on to examine the door, his long white fingers flitting over the wooden slats and iron fastenings. "Any luck?" she queried.

"Not a whit," the Doctor answered, his voice muffled by the casement as he crouched down to take a closer look at the tiny crack of clearance between the door's bottom edge and the floor.

"Well," Donna continued, "She said their sheriff was a gruff guy, but he'd treat us fairly."

"Wolf," the Doctor said.

"Wha'?" Donna replied.

"Their sheriff's name is Wolf. I saw it on his office door when they dragged me in for questioning. 'B. Wolf', it said."

Donna snorted, and the Doctor looked back at her quizzically. "What?" he asked.

"Nothing," she replied, fighting down a chuckle. "It's just..." She lost her fight for a brief moment before continuing. "That girl Rose called him Bigby."

The Doctor merely blinked at her. "And?"

"Well, it's just funny," she explained, with a slight tinge of exasperation. "Bigby Wolf." She sniggered and lifted one palm to the ceiling as if to say she was handing him the joke on a silver platter. The Doctor's gaze was completely blank. "Like Big. Bad. Wolf." she enunciated slowly. "What, do I hav'ta spell it out for you spaceman? And you always talking about how smart you a-"

The Doctor was on his feet in an instant and towering over her. Donna was taken aback, not only by the speed with which he had moved (she hadn't even seen him cross the small floor space between them), but by the look of fury that filled his face. She had seen that look before, directed at others. His eyes had gone charcoal black, and Donna felt her words die in her throat as she leaned away from his looming form.

"What did you say?" he rasped. Donna found her mouth had gone completely dry. "Donna," and there was an edge to his voice she had never heard him take…not with her anyway…never with her. "What did you just say?"

Swallowing heavily, she answered him. "Bad Wolf," she managed to whisper, feeling herself pinned to the rough mattress beneath her like a prized butterfly in some enthusiast's display case. "I said Big Bad Wolf."

For a moment longer, the Doctor locked her in that dark gaze. Then he turned to face the bolted door. His hands lifted distractedly towards his head and his fingers buried themselves in his hair. Donna noticed that they were shaking. "It can't be," he said, a hint of desperation in his tone. "Not here." He ripped his hands from his skull and they hung useless at his side. "Not now," he continued to insist.

"Doctor," Donna broached tentatively. Her throat still felt raw from its recent bout of paralysis. "Doctor, what's wrong?" The Doctor extended one arm out straight before him and placed his palm flat against the stones framing the doorway. He leaned against the wall, his head hung down, still shaking in denial. His eyes, wide open, stared at nothing. "Doctor!" she queried again, fright adding a higher pitch to her voice. She stood up from the bed on wobbling knees.

"Bad Wolf," he said, barely above a whisper. Straightening, he allowed his fingers to trail a path down the wall, before falling limply away. Turning around, he leaned back against the door frame and lifted his eyes to the ceiling. "Those words." He looked as though he would say more, but after several moments of silence, Donna felt the need to prompt him.

"Yeah?" she asked. "What about them?"

The Doctor sighed and lowered his gaze to meet hers. "I have a history with those words."

Before Donna could ask him what on Earth he meant by that there was the sharp sound of the heavy lock turning. Both of the room's occupants turned towards it as the door swung slightly inwards. When fully opened it revealed the lanky form of a scraggly looking young man in an orange jumpsuit. A matching orange baseball cap with silly, green goofball eyes attached to the top was scrunched down on top of his head. Beneath it, Donna could just make out a set of angular features and some rather prominent freckles. "Excuse me," he said, his voice cracking. His form of address again made Donna wonder if their supposed captors were always this polite with their prisoners. She was beginning to suspect that she and the Doctor were the exception, rather than the rule. "But Ms. White's returned and Blue asked me to escort you to the head office."

The Doctor stared at the man for a minute, as if he were speaking some foreign language the TARDIS had neglectfully failed to translate, before his face broke into gleaming animation. "But of course he did!" the Doctor enthused at the strange man. "Blue, did you say? And we're to see Ms. White are we?"

The man rubbed almost apologetically at the back of his neck. "And Bigby, I think," he added.

"Yes, of course," the Doctor continued excitedly, "The infamous Bigby Wolf. Such a pleasant character. We had such fun the last time we spoke, I just can't wait to see him again." The man in the orange suit just blinked at him in confusion, as if not sure what to do the face of such boundless enthusiasm and outright sarcasm. It was a common response to the Doctor's antics, and Donna cut the performance short by stepping forward to join the man in the passageway. "Right," continued the Doctor, apparently unfazed, stepping out in her wake. "Lead on my good man."

The hallways were nothing like what you would find in a normal apartment building, unless apartments in New York were vastly different from London flats. Donna couldn't say for sure, of course. The other side of the universe she'd been to, the other side of the pond…not so much. But still, there was something just decidedly _wrong_ about the areas the orange man led them through on their way to their appointment. Oh, they had everything you would expect of a high class London flat, too. There were lifts with little glowing floor buttons that omitted the number 13, and wall to wall carpets. There were little claw foot tables positioned beneath ornate mirrors and topped with fresh flower arrangements. But the halls were a little _too_ wide, if you could imagine that. And although the lift dinged as it opened to allow them entrance, and dinged again as it deposited them off on the correct floor, it made absolutely no sound while in motion. No whirr of an engine…no hiss of wires sliding. Donna felt more than a little relieved to be exiting it.

At the end of the hall were a set of doors with frosted glass panes set into them. Like a normal office building, each had the name of the occupant emblazoned in black paint upon it. They passed one that read "Mayor's Office," and beneath that "K. Cole." Donna thought she caught a faint snort from the Doctor. The man in orange stopped before a door with a similar designation. "Business Office," it said, and "S. White."

The man knocked politely at the door, and upon hearing an indecipherable comment from within, began to push the door inwards. Before he could even get it open all the way, the Doctor had thrust his own hand out against it and finished the job for him. Without invitation, he strode purposefully past the somewhat shocked man in the silly hat and into the room. He wasn't wearing his long coat, but Donna could almost see it wafting out behind him in a dramatic sweep.

Following after him, Donna felt her eyes drawn up towards the ceiling. And up, and up and…Dear God! Did this place ever end? Her eyes gave up the firmament and settled instead on the giant two-masted wooden sailing ship that was…she blinked and checked again…yes, _floating_ off its moorings in a far corner. Pillars that looked lifted straight from some Roman edifice and statues were littered about the floor like so many scattered toys left by a giant toddler in the midst of his games. Beside two oversized writing desks was a Grecian urn as large as the TARDIS center console, and stuffed with battered parchment scrolls. Next to it leaned a gilt framed mirror, polished to a shine. It reflected the room's light in wavy patterns against the larger of the desks. Donna observed this phenomenon with great curiosity. Where exactly did the light come from? It was diffuse, almost natural in its substance. But the only window she could see was a tall, narrow stretch of stained glass on one high wall, a decoration more fit for a church than...than whatever in God's name _this_ place was. There were no electric lights that she could see, no candles…nothing. Bigger on the inside, she thought, shaking her head in amazement.

The Doctor skirted the lowered traces of negligently parked chariot and approached the desks with a purposeful swing to his steps, stopping several strides short of their occupants. His eyes burned with cold appraisal. All three looked up at him as he barged into their conference. One, a woman with hair the color of graveyard shadows at midnight and an ivory complexion to match the deathly pallor of that metaphor, rose to her feet at his approach. Donna watched as she moved with no little difficulty to stand in front of her desk. She noted, with the delicacy that only women seemed to possess, that the woman was pregnant; showing quite a bit, and struggling with the awkwardness of her lowered center of gravity.

"You," shouted the Doctor, pointing almost angrily at the lovely, dark haired woman. "You're supposed to be Snow White. And you," the Doctor continued, his finger shaking slightly as he indicated the older man's scruffy, smoke blurred features. "You're the Big Bad Wolf." The Doctor whipped around to where the cute blonde kid who'd shown her to her cell was sitting behind a desk, his bandaged hands resting on its surface next to an overturned trumpet. "And you with the..." The Doctor raised his fingers and wiggled them ridiculously before his face. "The horn thing. You're Boy Blue or something. And YOU!" The Doctor finally swung around fully to face the lean man in the faux prison jumper, who now stood in a hunched manner behind him. "Actually, I've absolutely no idea who you are," the Doctor finished with frustration, running fingers through his already mussed hair.

The skinny man who had led them here removed his incongruous novelty cap to reveal a mop of red curls tangled beneath. His green eyes were all but invisible behind his untamed fringe. "I'm Flycatcher," he explained demurely.

"Right," continued the Doctor, turning back to face his interrogators, "Because _that_ makes _perfect_ sense."

"Umm…sorry," Donna piped up from beside the man apparently called Flycatcher, and raising her hand slightly, like a student asking permission to use the loo. "But, how exactly does any of thismake sense?"

"Quite simple, Donna," the Doctor drawled, leaning back and attempting to stick his fists into the pockets of a jacket he belatedly realized their captors had removed from him hours before. "As I categorically refuse to accept the premise that actual, honest-to-goodness, fairy-tale beings - not just fanciful beings mind, but actual characters out of human literature – are living in a little artist's enclave in twenty-first century New York City, then the only logical alternative is that none of this is actually happening. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that you and I have merely gone temporarily insane. Or else we're wandering in some bizarre brain damage induced dreamscape. Or have been dosed with extreme amounts of d-Lysergic acid diethylamide. Or are being not-so-subtly manipulated by a powerful race of telepaths."

Donna found absolutely none of the Doctor's explanation comforting, even in the slightest.

"Or maybe it's just me." He beamed beatifically at that, as if the thought gave him some real comfort. "Maybe you're not here at all and it's just me who's being treated to this sick ride through fantasy-land, which," the Doctor raised a finger for emphasis, as his brow darkened, "I'd like to point out, would be considerably more enjoyable from the passenger car of a monorail." The Doctor raised himself up on his toes and peered around at the massive objects cluttering up the cavernous room. "You haven't got one around here, do you? Might brighten the place up a bit."

"Like you can talk, _Doctor_," said the man who Donna supposed was Bigby, grumbling around his cigarette and sneering out the Doctor's name. Removing the butt from between his lips, he puffed a cloud of smoke almost violently off over his shoulder before turning his narrowed eyes back on the blathering man in the blue pinstriped suit. "One thing's for certain, you're no mundy."

"Sorry?" The Doctor cupped a hand behind his ear and turned it towards the slouched and angry looking man. "Don't think I caught that term there."

The sheriff flicked his depleted butt away and straightened to his full height. He thrust his chin briefly in Donna's direction and said, "One of them. The mundane." He took several steps in the Doctor's direction and Donna felt a pool of ice water form in her bowels. His hips and shoulders swayed with a looseness that completely betrayed the coiled steel muscles beneath. His eyes roamed over the Doctor from tousled topknot to dusty chucks, like a prize fighter sizing up a rival, and finding them lacking. He looked dangerous, his whole manner of approach a picture of studied unconcern. "Don't smell like it. Don't taste like it." With each comment he advanced an additional step towards the Time Lord. There was no mistaking his threatening posture, and Donna shivered not knowing why. In the strange light that permeated the vast room, the sheriff's shadow loomed large upon the stone floor. Huge even. "Hell," he fairly growled, baring his teeth, "You don't even act mundy."

To the Doctor's credit he never wavered; merely drew himself up to his full height and met the sheriff's glinting eye. "And what about you, _werewolf_," he insinuated. The shorter man didn't twitch a muscle in response. "You know I've dealt with your kind before," the Doctor continued, adopting a more flippant tone than Donna thought was absolutely proper for the tense moment. "Got knighted out of the deal…well, and banished." With an attitude of complete indifference, he turned his attention away from the dark eyed man before him and bathed Donna in a brilliant smile. "I ever tell you about that? Queen Victoria and the Kohinoor? Good times."

Before Donna could react to this statement in any manner (Werewolves? Was he serious?), several things happened at once. The sheriff drew himself back from the Doctor with a rumble in his chest that sounded almost like a growl, the Doctor's suddenly flaming eyes snapped immediately back to his aggressor as he began to turn in that direction, and a commanding voice rang out through the cathedral like space of the room.

"Bigby!" The snarl stopped before it had ever fully begun and the sheriff's head jerked slightly in the direction of the black haired beauty who had remained standing aloof to one side, icy and unconcerned, throughout the entire altercation. "Leave him," she clarified. Bigby snorted, then took a single, regretful step in retreat. The Doctor blinked in sudden confusion. Donna felt the ice in her stomach melt. Thank goodness someone, at least, had this cur on a leash.

The woman approached the two men with an air of confidence despite her awkward pace, and for the first time Donna noticed that she leaned upon a cane as she walked. "You're right Doctor," she said, "It does sound crazy." She stopped next to Bigby and cast a cold look upon the Time Lord. "But it's true. All of it."

The Doctor tsk-ed. "You can't seriously think that I'd believe any of this. It's utter nonsense. Fairy tale characters living in New York. And what do you do exactly? Live off royalties."

The woman's look, if possible, grew more cold. "We survive," she said, her eyes narrowed with anger before flicking to the stocky man at her side.

"We can't trust him," Bigby drawled. Then, with a hint of annoyance, he continued, "Can't kill him. Can't let him go, at least until we've let the thirteenth floor have a go at him. Can't seem to shut him up…"

The Doctor's indignant 'Oi! Standing right here!' was summarily ignored by the woman, who arched one perfect eyebrow at her companion in question. Bigby sighed heavily. "But he's no tool of the Adversary, I can tell you that much." The woman nodded, and turned to the Doctor, her mind apparently made up.

"Doctor, I don't know who you are or why you're here, but our sheriff has vouched that you're not allied with our enemies, and at this point that makes you nominally our friend. Since right now we need just about all the friends we can get, I'm not disposed to be treating any of them like so much garbage." She smiled ruefully. "But, Bigby's right, we can't let you go. Especially not now, not that you've seen…well…what you've seen." She straightened her shoulders and addressed him with authority. "Now there's two ways you can handle this. You can cooperate and we talk this matter out like civil people, or you can continue to fight us and get locked back in your cell until all this blows over. Regardless, we don't have the time or resources to deal with you and your friend right now. We've got other concerns at the moment, and believe it or not they're bigger than the sudden appearance of some absent minded professor who sees past all our glamours, can slip out of magically reinforced handcuffs and drives Bigby's senses up a wall." She held the cane up before herself; apparently she didn't need its support all of the time. Waving it slightly for emphasis, she asked, "So, what's it going to be, Doctor?"

The Doctor took an uncertain step back. He seemed more put out by the woman's statements than he had been by the sheriff's threats. Unconsciously, his hand raised to the back of his neck and he bowed his head. He held himself in that pose for a moment before dropping his hand to his side and saying, in a much more familiar manner, "Like what?"

"Excuse me?" the woman asked archly.

"What could be bigger than me showing up out of the blue?" He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and rocked back and forth on his feet. "I mean, if you're _really_ supposed to be some mystical fairyland folk, you should be pretty much used to strange by now. Giant beanstalks, talking livestock, runcible spoons." He stopped rocking and abruptly took on an entirely different manner, asking, "By the by what exactly _is_ a runcible spoon? I had an old friend I was always meaning to pick one up for." Donna cleared her throat loudly enough for the Doctor to hear her and get back on subject. "Point being, it should all be old hat. And me, weeeelllll, my particular flavor of weird should be pretty much par for the course." He crossed his arms before him. "So what exactly needs to happen to make Snow White lose her cool?"

A hastily repressed snigger drew everyone's attention to the smaller of the two desks. The bandaged boy in the blue shirt looked horribly embarrassed behind his wide and innocent eyes. The distinct sound of a tennis shoe angrily striking the underside of the desk could very clearly be heard. "Sorry!" a squeaky voice stage whispered from beneath its heavy oak façade of a carved eagle's head. "It's just…lose her cool." The giggles continued as the boy's mouth drew out into a thin line of displeasure.

The Doctor's attention returned to the woman before him. "Don't ask," she said with a sigh. She looked sideways at Bigby, and something seemed to pass between them without words. Donna wondered at their mode of silent communication which seemed to say so much with just a look. Bigby shrugged then, as if to say, 'You'll do what you like, whatever I say.' The woman tilted her head at the Doctor, and her hair dipped accordingly, shimmering like a black velvet curtain. "Strange doesn't begin to describe it, Doctor. We're under attack."

"Attack," the Doctor asked with great incredulity, "From what? Disney copyright counsel?"

"I don't expect you to comprehend," she continued coldly, "And I don't have the luxury of time with which to explain it to you."

The Doctor appeared to be on the point of saying more, likely a wordy defense of his obviously superior comprehension, but he was brought up short by the sudden appearance of Donna at his shoulder. "Look," she said, hands on her hips in the posture that proved she was a force to be reckoned with across the universe. "I don't pretend to understand what's going on with you people. And I don't ever pretend to understand what going on with this idiot," she jerked her head at the man beside her. "But I do know one thing, nothing's going to get done or explained if we keep railing at each other like little children."

She glanced at the Doctor, and saw the only confirmation she needed reflected in his eyes. "And if it's time you're in need of, we can help with that."


	9. Chapter 9

"So it turns out that the Kohinoor was not just a pretty diamond, but was also a necessary component of a very complex telescope designed to kill wolf-man aliens."

It is perhaps a measure of how much he has come to depend upon his dove filling his evenings with magic and mystery that he fails to bat an eyelash at her nonsensical statement. Certainly, it is no more far-fetched than many of her previous phrases.

"The Victorious Queen was thankful for the service which the Djinn and Rose had performed for her. She asked that both kneel and she granted them royal titles." He naturally perks up upon hearing this. A royal title? His dove? Well, that changes things for certain. Already he can feel the massive wheels of palace gossip beginning to turn. From eunuch slave boy, to scullery maid, to assistant seamstress to the harem ladies, to the head eunuch, and finally to the women of the bridal chambers itself. He wonders what they will make of it all. He wonders what his courtiers and royal advisors will think of it. Certainly, none may refer to her any longer her foreign trash. None have done so in his presence, of course, but he hears whispers. Near treasonous whispers that presume to question their Lord's decision to spend his hours with whomever he chooses.

"Then she banished them from her realm forever, saying that they were too dangerous to be trusted within the borders of her lands," his dove adds complacently.

"Banished?" he breaks in, unable to hold himself back. In his own lands, banishment was a penalty given only to the greatest of offenders; for instance, those who purposefully betrayed their masters or their monarch. The perpetrators of fratricide were also traditionally left in the desert just beyond the borders of his nation without food and with only salted water to drink. Although political killings were accepted, and to a certain extent encouraged, anyone who was caught in such dealings was treated to the same fate. It was considered a far more torturous outcome to be denied one's homeland than to be put to death. More than once malefactors had begged at his feet to be put to the sword rather than being forever banned from the land they so adored. He was not known for his mercy on such accounts. "My dove," he says, "That is horrible. The crimes of Rose and the Djinn, whatever they may have been, could not have warranted such a punishment."

"It wasn't that bad," she protests. "It's not as though the Victorious Queen exactly had the power to enforce the order across all of time. Rose was able to visit her mother still, not that she wanted to very much."

"I thought Rose and her mother were on good terms."

"They were," she asserts vehemently, "It's just…well, everyone has to leave home sometime."

He begs to differ. He has never had any firm desire to leave the palace grounds. Certainly, wars must be fought at their fronts and the occasional uprising in the provinces quelled, but these necessary absences had always been brief, and even then he had missed his home dearly throughout.

"Besides," she continues unasked, "The Blue Box was Rose's home, and she never wanted to leave it."

He gazes at her with some dismay. He had thought, from her comments that perhaps her banishment and apparent lack of attachment to the land of her birth would make her less inclined to want to return. The thought had pleased him momentarily, though he cannot put his finger upon why. Instead, he changes the subject. "Exactly how large is this Koh-i-noor?"

"It's big, over 100…" She pauses, appears embarrassed. "I am sorry my Lord, but I do not know the correct word. In my land we would say 'carats'. A designation of size used specifically for precious stones." Her lips purse together, for a moment almost disappearing into her pale skin. She holds her hand out before her, her thumb and first finger almost ascribing a circle, but the size of the indicated orb was slightly too great for the digits to touch one another. His eyes widen in surprise. Certainly _that_ was a jewel of some consequence. "The Djinn said it used to be bigger, too," she continues without urging, "Though not as pretty."

She picks up her tea and sips from the fine china cup, wetting her throat while composing her thoughts. Her lips have left a faint mark of carmine upon its edge. "I saw it once in my home time as well. The Kohinoor, I mean," she clarifies, replacing the teacup upon the mat. "It's part of my country's Crown Jewels and is on display for the public. It's not even the largest jewel there, that's the Afric Star."

He hides his surprise behind his own cup. To think! That his dove's homeland could hold such riches as she described! Clearing his throat, he did his best to cover for his momentary lapse, "My mother, may the One God preserve her soul, possessed a ruby of great size and beauty which was presented to my father as a portion of her bride price." His dove looks up, her head attentively cocked. "It is not near so large as your royals' badges, but it is the largest gem I have ever set eyes upon. And so perfect in color! Ah, my dove, it is like holding living fire in your hand. And when the light is just so, you can see a perfect six pointed star imbedded in its crystal core. That, of course, is where it gets its name: Antares. That is the old Ionian name for the great red star in the constellation of the Scorpion. It translates as 'the rival of Ares', who is their fierce god of war."

She smiles pleasantly up at him and, despite himself, he feels his insides shake. "It seems all large gems must have impressive names," she comments.

"Legend has it that the stone fell to earth as the stars are sometimes wont to do. My mother gave it to me upon my ascension to the throne, as a present for my future wife," he finished thoughtfully. He should not have mentioned the last. Not because it would have much meaning to his dove, but rather because thoughts of his first wife still made his fists tremble with barely concealed fury. Strangely, though, he finds himself unaffected by her memory for what may be the first time in decades. He wonders if this too is a result of his dove's beguiling ways. Certainly, since her arrival in his kingdom, he has felt much easier in his mind about a great many matters. Thus far he has attributed his good mood to an improvement in his diet from the hiring of a cook well versed in the cuisines of other countries and the frequent evening walks through the courtyards and flower gardens of the palace. Both practices, of course, having been instituted to bring pleasure and health to his little dove, but now he wonders if it is her presence alone which has so affected his good nature.

A sudden fancy strikes him and he leans forward eagerly, asking, "My dove, would you like to see my Antares?" She nods prettily and he claps his hands with authority. A young slave boy runs from the room. They fill their time of waiting with silent sips of tea interspersed with small bites of the sugary cakes his cooks have prepared especially for his dove, knowing well her fondness for sweets.

His major domo enters the room finally, eyes averted to his slippers and a small gilt box held before him. He kneels, sets the box down upon the woven carpet, bows with the proper words of address, then picks up the box and offers it with lowered head towards his sovereign. He takes it and dismisses the man with a preemptory wave of his hand. "Here my dove," he says, dismounting from his chair and lifting the lid. He joins her, sitting cross legged upon the rug and showing her its contents. Inside, cushioned by cream colored silk, sits the jewel. It is smooth and un-faceted, proclaiming its worth by its size and purity alone. The arms of the star at its heart reach spider-like towards its edges. 'If angels bleed,' he thinks, 'So must their blood appear to mortals.'

His dove gasps, and his attention is drawn to her awestruck features. "Oh!" she exclaims. "My Lord, it is beautiful!"

He says nothing. He is struck dumb by the sight of her at this moment. He is familiar with this look, of course; it is the same image of transported joy that fills her soul whenever she speaks of the Djinn. Of his honesty and courage. Of his determination to help others. Never before, though, has he seen it directed at himself, or at any of his court for that matter. Now she turns to him with eyes that outshine any precious jewel and a smile that would melt the strongest diamond.

"Could I…that is…may I hold it, my Lord." Her face does not betray any fear that he will deny her this simple request. As if he could; who could deny such a vision of transcendent loveliness. He proffers the box towards her and is rewarded with a sharp, excited laugh.

She takes great care in removing Antares from the box, setting it gently into the very center of her open palm. Pooled in the ivory silk of her skin, it looks as though it never left its cushioned home. She continues to 'ooh' and 'ahh', over it, turning it this way and that to watch the star shape within spin with the change in the light. He wonders if it is the thrill of discovery that fills her with this almost unearthly glow. Certainly, she fairly smolders with the same inner fire as she recalls to him alien landscapes almost beyond belief. Or is it perhaps a desire for the bauble itself which inspires her? He looks at the shining object cupped in her hands. Its flame could almost match the perfect blood-red pout of her carmine tinted lips. Almost, but not quite.

A single perfect lock of hair has come undone from her coiffure and has slid out from beneath her veil. It reminds him fondly of their first meeting. Of how improper her form of dress had been, and how she, in her ignorance, had not even known enough to be embarrassed. It is like spun gold, fine and shining. His hand reaches out, of its own accord, and gently brushes it back into place behind her ear. His fingers slip beneath her veil for a moment and ghost against the soft skin of her lobe. She freezes at the intimate touch and looks up nervously from the red stone. Her eyes, he recognizes, have been rimmed with khol, and each individual lash painted with black India ink. He is very close. Too close for propriety's sake. He would never have touched her so were she any other woman, not in the relative public of his audience chamber. He feels the feather-soft strands of her tresses between his calloused fingers. He stares into her eyes, his face as close as that of a lover's.

"Tell me dove," he asks kindly, "Do you like wearing jewels?"

She folds her hands over Antares, protecting it between her palms. Her brows crinkle, and are almost immediately wiped smooth as a serene look suffuses her features. He thinks she must have been practicing. "My Lord, I never quite saw the point."

"The point is to trade upon the inherent rarity of the stone to enhance the beauty of the wearer."

"Yes, but," she counters, "Such rarity is the province of the wealthy, whereas I am but a peasant." She gives only the slightest shake of her head, a small movement left and then a corresponding shift to the right. "I have no royal qualities to proclaim, aside from that which I may prove through the sweat of my brow."

"Yes," he presses, "But you have borrowed trinkets from others before have you not?" Even now, she sits before him wearing studs of deepest blue in her pert ears. Too, bands of gold clatter on her forearms whenever she shifts their position. She wears no rings, and never has in his presence. Likely, she has heard he finds them distasteful and gaudy.

"My Lord's ladies have helped me to attire myself as my Lord might desire a lady of the court to appear." She raises delicate fingers to an ear and swipes them against the sapphire affixed there. He thinks of her errant lock of hair, of his own boldness. "I will say, my Lord, that I am honored to be so favored as to see this, your treasure. Jewels such as this are a pleasure to look at, but…" She drops her hand.

"But what?" he asks.

"But so is a sunset," she explains, her always beguiling smile widening across her face, "Or a sunrise. A tree or a flower or the full night sky, and all of these are both common and free. The rarity or wealth of something is not necessarily indicative of its value."

He blinks at her. He recognizes that she awaits a response, or at least permission to go on with the tale he had interrupted, but he finds he has not the words to speak. What she says has truth to it, a truth he had never before considered. All of his life he has chased the trappings of wealth; gold and jewels and fine silks. He has fought wars for such things. He has worked tirelessly to increase his land's trade and fill its coffers. He has used his riches to purchase those things deemed, by everyone, to be the hallmarks of privilege and success. It is the way of the world, all covet wealth; all but his dulcet dove, that is.

"Beauty," he finally manages to get out, "Is in the eye of the beholder." She smiles in return, the ruby still resting gently upon her palm. Such a treasure. Greater than all the gold in his kingdom. More than silver or pearls. Priceless.

"You may," he swallows heavily, his throat suddenly, and unaccountably dry, "You may keep it, if you like." She blinks at him uncomprehendingly. "It is meant," he says with great discomfort, "For my intended."

At this declaration she blanches and turns away. Turns to face the casement where a night breeze still engages the gauzy curtains in a sensual dance. No, it is not morning yet, and he has reminded her of her position; of their respective positions. There is no chance now that she is unaware of what that means. Her Arabic is too fine, her position in the eyes of the servants too firm, for her not to have heard the tales. It is a fine story, if he may be so immodest as to say so. Not up to his dove's heroic ballads, but a fine, sad tale of beauty and love and loss and betrayal. He wonders momentarily – and he knows it is the influential presence of his dove which has caused him to consider the future in any manner at all – whether someday people will tell stories about himself. About his first wife and the vizier. About his solemn oath before the One God and the Prophet and any foreign, pagan deities that might be bothered to listen. Wonders if some day he shall be cast in legend, but as the villain rather than the hero.

He has made her uncomfortable, and he feels a gnawing in his stomach which cannot be hunger. Guilt, he thinks, with some surprise, and he searches for some way to fill the growing silence between them; some offhand comment that will turn both of their minds from dark thoughts. "A star to replace those which you have lost," he says, an unfamiliar pitch echoing in his words, "Which were once close enough to be touched, but which now are cast only as pinpricks in the dark mantle of the sky."

She returns his look, considering, and for the first time he wonders what _she_ thinks about _him_. "Thank you my Lord," she begins haltingly, "But my Lord does me too much honor."

"Nonsense," he breathes, but she is clearly not finished, and he allows her following words to break over his unspoken negations.

"My Lord, such a trinket may be saved for…for one's spouse, but truly, is not this type of token usually reserved for…well…" Color comes to her cheeks and it is more than entrancing. "For one's truest love?"

Her question infuriates him. Or at least, it _should_ infuriate him. Who is she, peasant girl from a heathen land, to question his decisions? Who is she to contradict him in his own house? Who is she to speak so of love in his chambers? He should be enraged. He should strike her, exile her from his sight forever. Or else take her as he has been wont to do since their first audience. Take her hard and fast against the cold stone floor, for he cannot be bothered to treat her to the luxuries of a bower. Take her and leave her a broken and beseeching mess for his supernumeraries to clean up and dispose of on the morrow. Like all the rest. Traitorous, heartless, bitches all.

He should be livid, but he is not. And rather than taking the back of his hand to her smooth cheek, he holds the golden box out towards her. Silently, she replaces the gem on its cushion. He snaps the metal top down quickly, almost catching her fingers half inside, but she draws them quickly away with a gasp and a frightened look. Tonelessly, he says, "Perhaps you are right."


	10. Chapter 10

To her surprise, Donna rather liked the flying monkey.

Surprise because they had always been her least favorite part of _The Wizard of Oz_. The first time she'd seen the movie, she'd had nightmares for weeks, but not of the witch or the tornado, or even the evil trees that threw apples at passers-by. No it was those damned monkeys! And now she thought she knew why they had given her such pause. Those monsters on the screen had clearly been regular people in silly suits, and because of that they had appeared totally unnatural. They would sweep down upon their prey like avenging devils; deranged and deformed. Whereas a fuzzy little creature the size of an organ-grinder's best friend, with perfectly proportional wings like that of a swan or a miniature angel, and which answered promptly to the name 'Buffkin', was far less intimidating. Plus, she had to admit, the way he sat on the edge of the desk taking notes on the conversation in a steno book, in what Donna recognized as perfectly passable shorthand, was flat out adorable. Super-monkey-temp, she thought, and stopped herself just short of cooing like a ninny.

Upon its initial emergence from beneath the desk, the Doctor had become thoroughly agitated. "Abraxian!" he had shouted confidently, leveling a finger in the simian's direction.

"Gesundheit," the monkey had replied obligingly.

"You," the Doctor continued, "My friend, are the first thing that's made sense since we came here. You're clearly from off world. Abraxis 4, I'd bet my next regeneration on it."

The monkey, crouching on the top of the desk with his knees drawn up to his chest and his wings folded carefully behind him, shot a questioning sideways glance at the young man seated behind him. "Uh…" he drawled, "We called it Oz, but whatever you say mister." His bushy blue-grey eyebrows raised dramatically and his eyes strayed to where Snow White and Bigby stood together, as if begging for permission to leave the presence of the crazy Doctor-guy.

The man in the orange jumpsuit - who everyone else seemed to refer to as 'Fly' - was sent out to find several other important individuals and reel them in. Donna and the Doctor were soon introduced to Mayor Cole, a charming old man with a handlebar moustache who switched his oversized pipe to his left hand before raising Donna's knuckles to his lips in a courtly greeting. Rose Red came bounding in, waving exuberantly. She gave a quick, appreciative glance around at the Doctor's behind before smirking her way to Donna's side and bumping shoulders.

"Heya," she said playfully.

"Hey yourself," Donna replied, bumping back.

"I see you both survived Bigby's terrible interrogation."

"Yeah," Donna grumbled, "But it was a near thing for a moment there."

"What?" Rose asked, her eyes roaming between the Doctor, who was enthusiastically greeting more new arrivals with all the sincerity of someone being introduced to a person's Renaissance Faire alter-ego, and the sheriff who was engrossed in lighting a new cigarette off of the glowing tip of an old butt. "Was there trouble?"

"Nah," Donna said, her eyes irrevocably drawn to an absolutely stunning woman whose name she hadn't caught. Her naturally golden hair fell perfectly straight to her shoulders, where it curled under to leave a smooth, unblemished line. He face was the kind one expects to see on the cover of fashion magazines. Striking blue eyes, perfectly pouted lips, and cheekbones that didn't need the bloom of artificial blush to enhance their curves. She wore a pink dress, and apparently no bra, though she certainly didn't need one to aid her youthfully perky assets. She had a dissatisfied look on her face, and Donna was amazed to see that she made dissatisfied look down-right attractive. Behind her stood a man Donna would normally consider to be fairly handsome, were he not so overwhelmed by the vision of perfection at his side. He had an appearance of perpetual nervousness, and his eyes flicked back and forth between the Doctor, Donna and the room's other occupants. "Just some male dominance issues that needed to get worked out."

"Ah," said Rose, understanding. "Men," she sighed, implying that she couldn't be bothered with such inanities. Turning to Donna, she went on, "Speaking of which, yours is even prettier up close and in person."

Donna gave a harsh laugh. "You can have him," she said, turning her attention from the beautiful woman and her inexplicably worried consort, and returning it to the Doctor. He was now trading formal bows with...oh! It was the Adonis from earlier! Donna suddenly felt her heat beat strongly in her chest and a growing warmth beneath her stomach. She gave her compatriot a significant look and added, "I'd rather have me one of those." She cocked her head towards the debonair, men's fashion model who was now acknowledging her with a sultry smile aimed over the Doctor's shoulder.

Rose followed her gaze and her nose wrinkled. "I wouldn't," she advised.

"Why," Donna asked, ripping her eyes away before her cheeks got any hotter, "He married?"

Rose held up three fingers. "Three times, hasn't taken yet."

"Oh." Donna couldn't quite keep the disappointment out of her voice. Changing the subject entirely, she rattled on, "So, who are you supposed to be then?" Rose arched a well plucked red eyebrow. "I mean, we've got Snow White and Boy Blue..." She let the question hang in the air.

Rose smiled companionably. "I'm Rose Red. Keeps with the color theme," she said. Tipping her head towards the dark haired woman making the introductions, she added in a put upon voice, "Snow's my sister."

"Oh," Donna said again, worried she was beginning to sound like a broken record of confused exclamations. "Sorry, never heard of you."

Rose shrugged unconcernedly. "Most people haven't."

"You must be Rose the Red," said the Doctor, ambling up to the two of them.

"Yeah," Donna said on her friend's behalf. "We just met. Again. For the first time."

"Ah," the Doctor said, raising his brows, "I get that a lot. Must be rubbing off on you Donna."

"Bloody well hope not."

"Excuse me," Snow interjected somewhat rudely, "But now that introductions are all over, I think we should get the painful explanatory process over with."

"Let me guess, 'A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.'" The Doctor paused, his face suddenly taking on an almost comically pensive look. "No, sorry," he said, "That's _Star Wars_. I guess a more appropriate beginning to this farce might be 'Once Upon A Time.'"

"Thank you Doctor," came the pale skinned woman's dry reply, "We certainly appreciate being patronized."

"Happy to – oof!" The Doctor was cut off as Donna's arm impacted with his midsection.

"Please go on Miss White," Donna said through teeth bared in a fierce smile, and perhaps a little more loudly than was absolutely necessary.

The black haired woman narrowed her eyes at Donna, before flashing an appreciative smirk. "Doctor," she began, "Are you familiar with multiple universe theory?"

"Yeah," the Doctor wheezed, still partially bent over at the waist, "You could say that."

"Then you're aware of the possibility that there are an uncountable number of alternate worlds running parallel to our own. Some of which may be very similar to the world we're living in, while others are vastly different."

The Doctor straightened slowly, and appraised the deputy mayor anew. "Of course," he said slowly. "Butterfly effect. Sometimes the smallest changes will have drastic effects in the long run. One day someone decides to turn right rather than left, a small decision with big consequences, and a whole new universe forms off of the possibilities arising from that one tiny moment."

The Doctor's brows drew together and Donna recognized that the strange woman had captured his imagination. She was speaking his language. Smart girl. Not someone she'd want as an opponent, that was for sure. "That is where the denizens of Fabletown come from, Doctor," she explained. "Not from some other planet, like you keep insisting, but from alternate worlds." She tossed her head and crossed her arms, appraising the Doctor as she did so. It was clear she intended this statement as a challenge. Her jet black hair bounced alluringly, a stark contrast to the cold attitude she was attempting to adopt. She would be beautiful, Donna thought, whatever she did. Ivory and sable and lips like blood. Her silken locks curled up naturally into too perfect circles. Her eyes showed a brilliant blue against her pale features.

The Doctor returned her appraisal silently, then said, "I'm listening."

If she was surprised at his answer, she didn't show it. She blinked slow and deliberate, and the dark sweep of her lashes against her white cheek was, for a moment, very visible. "Then imagine this Doctor. A billion worlds, a billion possibilities; why couldn't some of them be home to the lords and ladies of faery?"

"We Fables, for that is how we refer to ourselves, are exiles from other worlds. Our homes were overrun by an evil emperor. None of us have ever seen him; we don't even know his name. We call him the Adversary, and his followers were…are…legion. They marched through our lands long ago; burning, raping, pillaging. What you see before you now are the refugee remains of a thousand enslaved and subjugated realms. We were the few lucky survivors. Some of us were the rulers of our kingdoms, some of us were lowly peasants, some of us were wandering heroes…here, in this city, we are equals." Her voice turns serious during that last interval, stressing the importance of what she was saying. "We have, to a certain extent, embraced the attitudes and traditions of this, our adopted land. We rule by democratically elected representatives, however our former domains may have been run." She is interrupted momentarily by a cough from Mr. Cole, who seemed actually to be choking on his own pipe stem and not purposefully breaking in on her speech. "Our formal titles have no meaning except to adorn our names. We live in peace among the mundys, and yet separate from them." She turns a glare upon the Doctor. "We do not reveal ourselves, though we have power and magic items enough to rule this newborn country of America. And we do _not_ go about spouting pointless blather about fairy tales in public."

The Doctor thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No, sorry." He actually sounded a bit sorry to Donna. "I just can't believe it, that random universes would arrange themselves to turn out just like the events in Brothers Grimm."

"That's because you're going about it backwards," the sheriff interrupted with a deep grumble. The Doctor turned to the man, who was now half seated on the desk next to the little monkey, a near spent cigarette clenched between gnarled fingers. "You're thinking like a mundy."

The Doctor opened his mouth, and then closed it more slowly. He obviously didn't know how to respond to that. His gaze returned slowly back to Snow White, then moved on to the figures arranged behind her. His brow creased like it was wont to do whenever warning lights started flaring up all over the TARDIS and he would swivel the console screen towards himself, only to read a message that was as unintelligible to himself as it was to Donna. "You're saying," he drew out, "What if Grimm didn't have it first?" His head snapped back to face the woman before him. "Some humans are time sensitive," he stated, "Some are telepathic, even in this backward day and age." He took several steps away from Donna, so that now he could encompass Snow and Bigby and the rest of the motley group in one gaze. "You're suggesting some sort of…trans-universal awareness…that every fairy story from Earth's checkered past is a true tale somehow plucked from the ether between dimensions by particularly sensitive authors."

"It's a theory," Snow replied, with a single-shouldered shrug. "I don't necessarily ascribe to it."

The Doctor looked down at his trainers. The crease was still prevalent. "Fairy tales are archetypes. They reflect people's most instinctual fears. Teach the basic lessons necessary for survival in a harsh world, in a communal society." He raised his eyes again to his audience. "Don't be prideful. Don't be lazy. Don't cry wolf…well, not more than once anyway. And while we're on wolves," he began to pace out his thoughts, hands gripped behind his back. "Beware the woods, there's danger there." He turned on his heel and glanced back at Donna. A haunted look swept past his eyes. "There's danger in the darkness," he almost whispered, throwing a shiver of recognition down Donna's spine, if not that of anyone else. Then, quickly turning to face his observers, he finished, "They're a human evolutionary development as much as bipedalism or a large pre-frontal cortex."

"Also a theory," Snow asserted. "Look, whatever this world may be to you Doctor, to us it feels fake. The _real_ world is wherever we came from originally. It didn't take us long after we first came here to figure out the myths and legends of this universe seemed eerily familiar. It's not something we expected and it's not something we can explain with any degree of certainty. At the time we had greater concerns on our minds: setting up a stable community, fitting in with the mundys, defending our borders." She sighed then, dropping her shoulders, and suddenly the blue crescents beneath her eyes seemed more prominent. Bigby straightened from his position slumped against the smaller desk. Snow made a halting motion with her hand, and he returned to his vigil, his eyes burning into Snow's back. Taking up her cane, she hobbled behind the larger of the two desks, and slid tiredly into the chair. "Believe what you will, our Homelands are real and so are we. We can't explain the children's stories, and we don't bother too. If you need a more logical explanation than that, well, you're looking in the wrong place."

The Doctor watched her slow progress and descent with concerned interest. His eyes roamed over her form, taking in her slumped posture and the slight protrusion of her belly. His eyes softened and his entire manner changed. "All right," he said, "Let's say I believe you. Let's say you do all come from parallel dimensions. I won't say stranger things haven't happened, but then," he amended, "I've seen some pretty strange things in my time. Especially when parallel dimensions get involved. Here's the question, then." He paused, giving the woman time to breathe and gather herself, "How did you all get here?"

Snow seemed about to answer, but was cut off by Boy Blue. "Gateways," he said. "Doors to other worlds. There used to be hundreds of them, though most are gone now. Little rips in time and space scattered all about the globe. Canada. Transylvania. Wales."

"Wales?" the Doctor turned his full attention on the bandaged boy. "As in, Cardiff, Wales?"

The boy shrugged. "We used to have a pretty big contingent of Fable-folk living in the British Isles and quite a few came through the Wales gate. But that was before my time, you'd have to ask Snow or Mayor Cole. I didn't come across until the early nineteenth century, but the two of them helped immigrate us to the colony of New Amsterdam long before the birth of these United States."

"Wait," Donna called, unable to hold her tongue any longer, and advancing slightly towards where the young man sat. "You're sayin' you're over a hundred years old?"

The boy blinked at her and seemed on the point of answering, when he was interrupted by Bigby. "We don't really keep track of that sort of thing around here. Most of us don't seem to age much, and those that do, well, they stop eventually."

Donna stared at him for a moment with her mouth wide, then turned her attention to Snow White, then to the beautiful blonde woman, the charming Adonis, and the somewhat embarrassed looking Rose. "It's not fair," she groused, "You all look fantastic, and here any one of you could be my grandparents three times over."

She allowed her gaze to rest on the Doctor. His face was pinched in consideration, as if this news had also brought him to a pause. His hair sprung healthy and free above his youthful face. His eyes were clear and bright. He'd had wrinkles as long as she'd known him, but not the kind you worried about. They were kind that only stood out around the lips and eyes when he was laughing. And he had an exuberance that she, at age 34, just couldn't match. Ostensibly, they looked like they could be the same age, but Donna knew nothing was farther from the truth. And whereas she was only going to get slower as they continued on their adventures together, get more tired, get to be more of a burden, he would stay young and bouncy and excitable for…well, who knew how long.

No, it really wasn't fair. And not just to her, she realized, perhaps a bit belatedly. Luckily, the Doctor didn't seem to be paying her outburst even the slightest attention.

"You said there's more of these…rifts," he questioned Blue.

"They're all destroyed or closed now," he responded, leaning back negligently until his chair was balanced only on its two back legs. "As far as we know, they can look like just about anything," he continued without encouragement, "A cave entrance, the mouth of a river. Some people think the old witching well down in the first sub-dungeon is a defunct gate, but we've got no proof of that. If we did we'd have it guarded like all the rest of the old ways."

"Except for the Canada gate," Snow added, somewhat despondently, her face held in her hands.

"What?" Bigby broke in, coming to attention.

"It's been breached; a hole ripped through from the other side and all the guards killed," she answered bleakly. A loud thud echoed through the immense room as Boy Blue's chair legs slammed violently to the floor. Snow looked up sharply from her hands. Turning to stare at Bigby she complained, "You knew that."

Bigby's hands stretched wide to either side of him, a blue plume of smoke curling upwards from his left. "Since when?"

"Oh, my God," came a wavering voice from the peanut gallery. Donna turned to see the lovely woman's face drain of color entirely as trembling fingers lifted to suddenly ice-pink lips. "They're coming, they're really coming." Behind her, the nervous man stepped forward to place a calming hand upon her forearm. He didn't look worried so much anymore…just…decided.

"This calls for urgent action," announced Cole in a presumptive tone. "I move that we immediately table all concurrent Fabletown business and adjourn any proposed elections indefinitely."

"Exactly when did this happen," asked the Adonis, sounding more than a little put out. He strode up to Snow, looming over her as she sat in her chair. Snow ignored him in favor of watching Bigby as he slowly approached her desk form the other side.

"That's what I'd like to know," Bigby said.

The Doctor backed diplomatically away from the group until he was shoulder to shoulder with Donna.

"Bigby, exactly what do you think you're playing at?" Snow said with great exasperation, holding her palm up with her elbow set in the desktop as if she were balancing an invisible globe on one hand. "You're the one who went to Canada in the first place! _You _asked for travel funds from petty cash. _You _called _me_! At three a.m., if I need to remind you, spouting cryptic messages about the gate and saying we should prepare for all out war!" Her eyes were shading a dark and dangerous blue.

The Doctor leaned in to Donna's ear. "This seem familiar to you at all?" Donna nodded, but remained silent. Rose peered around Donna's head to give the Doctor a curious glance. He beamed at her in return.

Bigby lifted a hand to his forehead and rubbed viciously, squeezing his eyes shut. "Snow, you've been working too hard recently…pushing yourself…and with the cub and all-"

"Stop right there!" Snow said with great vehemence, rising to her feet with a quickness that belied her earlier exhaustion and which made Adonis take a cautious step back. "Not another word," she threatened, pointing a finger mere inches from Bigby's nose. "I will not have anyone molly-coddling me because of this…because of my condition. Least of all you. I am _not_ made of glass." She dropped her hand and looked away. "I know what I heard. You called - woke me up in the middle of the night - said you were in Canada, that the gate had been broken and that we needed to ready ourselves for an attack. Why else would I have called a war council together, or asked Rose Red to come down from the Farm for a consult?"

Bigby raised one unkempt eyebrow and swept his gaze over the assembly. "Snow, I haven't checked on the Canada gate in years. I've been out in the mundy for the past few days, yes, but chasing after some of the tourists. Trying to dig up information on Red Riding Hood." He spoke his next words very slowly, choosing them carefully. "Are you sure you didn't just dream that call? The doctor said you'd been having strange-" He cut himself off as Snow's head whipped around to face him.

"You've been talking to Doctor Swineheart?" Each word came out sounding more furious than the last. Her face was a mask of indignation; her red lips a straight edged border to perfectly white and even teeth. The cane clattered to the desktop and Snow swung away. She took several steps with her back turned towards the company and her arms thrust harshly into a cross beneath her breasts. "So much for doctor-patient confidentiality," she muttered angrily to the giant urn before her.

"Ummm, excuse me." The attention of the entire room, which had until that point been fixed rather single-mindedly on the domestic squabble between the sheriff and the deputy mayor, swiveled suddenly to the man at Donna's side. "Hello!" He waved and smiled hugely at the group, "I think I may just have an explanation for all this."

Snow glanced back over her shoulder. "Like what," she asked coldly.

"Paradox," the Doctor replied, his voice wavering only slightly.

"Right," said Adonis, turning to face the Doctor, "And who are you again."

"I'm the Doctor!" The Doctor said cheerily, "We were just introduced, if you recall."

"That's right," the man said, his eyes going suddenly and threateningly dark. "But you know, you never said…" He advanced several steps towards the Time Lord. "Doctor who?"

'Oh, no,' thought Donna, rolling her eyes, 'Not this again.'

"No, I didn't," the Doctor's voice was as dark and threatening as the young man's. "But then, seeing as how you're calling yourself, Prince Charming, you'll forgive me if I'm a little wary about slinging my own moniker around in such society."

Donna almost choked on her tongue.

"Bigby," Prince Charming (Prince Charming?!) asked, turning towards the sheriff, "From what rank sewer did you pull this moron from?"

"What?!" scoffed the Doctor.

"Hey!" shouted Donna, indignant on behalf of her friend.

"Stop it." That was Snow's commanding monotone. "This testosterone fest is getting us nowhere. Doctor, you said you could offer some kind of help."

"Correction," grumbled the Doctor, "I will be offering you some kind of help."

"And what if we don't accept?" Bigby burst into the conversation.

"No choice really," the Doctor said with a thoughtless shrug of his shoulders. "It's deal with me or deal with the Reapers when they turn up to destroy you and everyone else in this city." The simultaneously shocked looks that plastered themselves across the faces of Blue, Bigby, Snow and the Prince at that moment would normally have been enough to make Donna break out in laughter. Given the seriousness of the situation, she was glad she managed to avoid hilarity.

"Reapers," gasped the beautiful woman, "Is that's what's attacking us?" She sounded close to terror.

"No," said Snow and Blue together.

"Yes," said the Doctor.

"Miss White," the man named Cole interjected angrily. "Will you please explain exactly what is going on and who these two interlopers are."

Snow sighed. "Mr. Mayor, the only intel we have at this moment indicates that Fabletown is being threatened by Red Riding Hood, who we have now identified as a spy for the Adversary, and three living wooden soldiers."

"Four people," sneered the Prince incredulously. "That doesn't seem that bad."

"Yes, but we expect much more," Snow explained turning to face him. "It would have taken a lot more than four invaders to take out the Canada gate."

"Which we're not even sure really happened," Bigby added, earning himself a cold stare from Snow.

"And that's where the Reapers come in," the Doctor interrupted. "They're guardians of the timelines. When something goes wrong in space-time - a paradox like the one you're facing right now – they show up to fix things so that all existence doesn't get winked out when time collapses in on itself." The Doctor looked down and picked an invisible bit of lint off of his tie. "Since they tend to do that by eliminating everyone and everything in a twenty block radius, I think that's probably an outcome we'd like to avoid."

The collective jaws of the Doctor's audience fell in unison. "Look," said Donna, recognizing that their new acquaintances would need a more prosaic rendition of the Doctor's trademark obfuscation, "What the Doctor's trying to say is this." She ticked off each point on a well manicured fingernail. "One, Snow remembers Bigby doing something in the past. Two, Bigby doesn't remember this at all. Since neither of them appear to be crazy, intoxicated or even particularly forgetful, that leaves only one sensible possibility." She let her hands drop. "Someone's been mucking around with time and unless you know anyone else around here with a working time machine, well, then it was probably us."

There was a long pause as the occupants of the room adjusted to their new lives in a world that included the possibility of time travel. The Prince was the first to speak. "Actually," he said, "I can think of a few more sensible possibilities."

"As could I," added Cole.

"I'm still trying to figure out how these Reaper things are involved," the pretty woman interjected, "Is that what the big Pinocchios with guns are called?"

"You," Bigby growled, advancing quickly towards the Doctor and aggressively pointing his still burning cigarette at him. "Have a _time machine_?" It was a statement more than a question; the statement being that the Doctor was clearly off his rocker.

"Yep," replied the Doctor, popping the 'p' and rocking back and forth in his chucks.

Bigby closed his eyes for a moment as if pained. "And you didn't mention this before because…"

"You didn't ask," the Doctor chided. "Besides, I was pretty sure you wouldn't believe me."

Snow grabbed her cane off the desk, pushed past Bigby and stood with her nose only inches away from the Doctor's. "You can travel in time?" Her question was far more serious than Bigby's had been a moment before.

The Doctor met her wide blue eyes with his own sad brown ones. "Yes," he said.

"You could go back in time," she continued, searching his face as if it were a puzzle to be solved, "Could warn us, give us time to prepare." She stepped back and took a breath. "Could buy us the time to arm ourselves and get our spells in place to hide it all from the mundys." She shook her head in disbelief. The woman of fable and myth; queen of a distant fairy tale world, she had never before come face to face with something she was completely unable to comprehend. She wasn't about to start. "And you…" she looked up at the Doctor, her beautiful sable locks hanging untidily in her face and her perfect burgundy pout quivering only very slightly, "You'll help us."

"Seems like," the Doctor replied, giving a knowing look at Bigby, "I already have."

Snow stared at him a moment longer before reaching blindly out to grip Bigby by the arm. "Bigby," she hissed, turning to the sheriff with a look of near desperation glowing in her eyes. "Figure out what you'll need. Use whatever resources we have. Tell whoever you think you can trust." She glanced around the room. "Or better yet," she turned back to the gruff man, "Take them with you. I'll need Blue and the Mayor here with me to handle administration, but you can take Buffkin or Beast or…"

"Wait," said the Prince, "Don't tell me you believe this guy?"

Snow spun around as fast as a whirlwind. "I do," she said, her eyes flashing angrily. "And I'm still Deputy Mayor here. Who invited you?" The Prince backed away, hands raised before himself in surrender. Snow turned back to Bigby with re-directed fury.

"It's all right Snow," Bigby soothed, gripping her forearms gently in support. "I hear you." He glared at the Doctor over her shoulder, "I still think it's crazy to trust this guy, but if he can offer us any serious chance to help our situation." The Doctor said nothing, merely met Bigby's gaze with equal malice and distrust. "Perhaps, Doctor," he said, patting Snow on the shoulder and stepping past her, "We should go take a look at this magic machine of yours before I make any final decisions."

The Doctor nodded, turned sharply about, and made his way to the door with Bigby at his heels. Left in their wake, Snow appeared, for a moment, as bereft as Donna felt.

"Right," muttered Donna under her breath, "I'll just stay here then."

Rose heard her. "Hey," she said, bathing Donna in a disarming smile, "We still need someone to explain this whole…time travel thing." Rose Red looked like she was still among the unconvinced. "'Cause I have to admit, that's a bit out of my league."

Donna smiled at her new friend. She was about to offer her thanks when a short gasp coming from Snow White distracted the both of them.

"Snow," Rose asked, sounding concerned, "You okay?"

"I'm fine," she replied, leaning heavily on her cane and blanched even whiter than her normal coloration. Donna felt for her. It was a lot to take in, especially for someone already under stress. In charge of a group of refugee magical persons. Under attack from their sworn enemy. Trying to hide all of it from a world full of normal people who, if they knew, would throw all the Fables in a loony bin, if they were lucky, and lock them in a scientific research facility if they weren't. Weight of the metaphorical world on her shoulders, and the weight of a brand new world forming in her womb.

"If you don't mind me asking," Donna said, catching her breath as Snow raised her bowed head so quickly that she was half certain the dark haired woman would very much mind and would have no compunction about telling Donna so. "Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?"

A myriad of emotions fluttered across Snow's pale features, finally settling on wistful consideration. As if of its own accord, the hand not clutching her cane came to rest against the prominent bulge of her belly. "I…I really don't know," she said, looking off into the distance. "The doctor never has gotten the sonogram to work right."

"Oh," Donna tipped her head in question, "Do you have a preference, then?"

Snow exhaled a quick breath that would have been called a laugh by anyone who didn't know her. "No, not really. I just…" She glanced down at her hand and removed it from her stomach. "I just want it to be _normal_."

The way she said the word gave it greater emphasis than a regular human mother would. Normal as more than just having ten fingers and ten toes; as more than lungs that worked and hearts without holes in them and other common nightmares of the expectant. No, _normal_ meant something quite different to a woman who regularly consulted with kings and werewolves on matters of administration, and who kept a flying monkey as a coffee jockey. As much as Donna could not bring herself to like this woman, to approve of the cold shoulder she turned upon the world as a whole, she felt that this much about Snow she could understand. Normal had special meaning to a woman who'd traveled through time and space, too. Reaching out a tentative hand, she laid her fingers upon Snow's arm in a manner she hoped was comforting. It felt as smooth and cold beneath her palm as the perfectly chiseled marble it resembled.

Snow's eyes flicked towards Donna at her touch. "Not much chance of that, though, is there?" Not waiting for a response – and really, what words of comfort could Donna offer – Snow backed away, and in moments was busy mustering the remainder of her war council into some form of order.


	11. Chapter 11

"You mean to tell me," he asks in the imperious tones he usually reserves for speaking to his clerks, "That while Rose and her suitor were having their organs harvested like sacrifices in some heathen Druid's ritual, the Djinn was attending a revel at court?"

She nods, one side of her mouth turned up in what is clearly not amusement. "Not exactly his finest hour."

"Rose could have been hurt," he stresses, though why he feels the need to explain this to her is beyond him. Perhaps it is her offhand description of the situation, as if none of it truly mattered, that has confused him. How can she be so calm and collected, describing such an awful scene?

She shrugs, showing her unconcern a little too blatantly to be believed. "The Djinn trusted Rose to take care of herself."

"And the little half-wit Afric slave-boy?" he asks.

She coughs at that and looks at him out of the corner of one eye. Somewhat belatedly he recalls that she does not approve of that particular description. Not because of his implication that the silly man-child was an imbecile, a fact which was quite clear from her stories, but rather because of his insistence on naming him among the slave classes derived from that vast, uncivilized continent. She has explained to him previously, that such opinions were looked down upon in her own lands and that persons of all races and creeds were accorded equal worth. He thinks it a tremendously stupid idea; there are no two equal things in life, even the leaves of the same tree differ in when they yellow and fall. This is what comes of teaching women of government! However, he has taken note of her discomfiture, and has attempted since then to moderate his comments regarding the boy. It is a small thing and no trouble to grant. He does not let his guilt at forgetting touch his features, but he feels it all the same.

"The Djinn trusted Rose to take care of him too," she continues, without comment.

He shakes his head, but changes the subject to something else that has caught his interest. "And what, exactly, is a banana dah-kir-ee," he pronounces the one untranslated word slowly. He has to admit, he takes a curious glee in learning the meanings behind these strange words from her even stranger world.

"It is a drink, my Lord, made with ice and alcohol and…well…bananas, of course."

He snorts in derision and looks away, hiding his former interest in his apparent disgust. It is not entirely proper to show fascination in things prohibited by the One God, and he hopes she will forget his question and move on quickly to her tale.

Obliging as always, she does. The Djinn attempts to close the windows to the past, but finds himself stymied. Then the clockwork people recover their wits and attack the heroes yet again. In between is a discussion between Rose and the Djinn which makes his head spin with esoteric explanations, but then he is used to his dove's description of such things by now. Still it is surprising to him that the Djinn sends Rose into the past to speak with his lovely Courtesan, and even more surprising that she does so in good faith. Certainly, she must see the concubine as a rival for the Djinn's affections, and yet her comments are not catty. He wonders a moment if perhaps his dove has toned down her heroine's reaction to make her appear more ladylike. But no, he has independent confirmation enough that Rose can be very ladylike; and to assume she possesses the same petty jealousies as his harem girls is to do her no justice at all. Rose was better than that. She _is_ better than that, he reminds himself. And yet the Courtesan had pretty manners as well, although, any woman who spoke out so at a social function of his (and to presume to teach her king and patron patriotism, preposterous!) would quickly be reminded of her place.

"The Courtesan said that the clockwork people were only nightmares of her youth and that, if they could find her," she smiles almost secretively, "Then their nightmare could find them, too." Ah yes, he thinks, and almost smiles in return. The Oncoming Storm she has called him at times, and Destroyer of Worlds. Now, Nightmare to Monsters. His original decision that she refer to him solely as 'the Djinn' was quite correct.

Her eyebrows pull together, as she changes her entire manner. "You know, I saw this picture once," she says, apparently apropos of nothing. "A painting called _The Nightmare_. It was of this fainting woman, and she had this…oh, what did he call it-" her look turns frustrated. A moment later she says the word "Incubus?" framing it as a question to himself. He shakes his head. The language is familiar, but the phrase has no independent meaning. "Like an…imp," she tries, "A demon?" And he nods at her to continue. "There's this demon on her chest," she goes on, "Giving her bad dreams. But that's not the scary part. It should be, but it isn't. No, what's really spooky about the image is that there's a horse sticking its head through the window into the bedroom. I like horses, or I did before I saw this painting, but this one was just…" He sees her shudder slightly under her thin dress. "It was bone white in color, and almost insubstantial, and its eyes!" He sees her fists clench unknowingly at her sides. "Its eyes were milky white and blind. And I remember thinking, that's the night mare…that right there…not the silly demon thing, but that sightless ghost horse."

She looks up at him and releases her fists. "I always wondered if that was what gave him the idea. He was good at that sort of thing…making connections." Her voice trails away, and she suddenly appears afraid to continue.

"And…" he pushes, after it becomes clear she will not go on without pressure.

"The Djinn, he…" she swallows heavily. "He jumped on that silly horse – bareback of all things – and galloped straight through the mirror into the other time." She is silent then, but with contemplation rather than discomfort, and he lets her be. She picks the story up of her own accord several moments later. "Rose and Mickey, didn't know what happened then. They couldn't see through the glass anymore, and they were alone." She glances off over her shoulder with the softest of sniffs. Her attempt to hide her emotions from him is unsuccessful, but not unappreciated. Before she came to live in his palace she might have been reduced to unseemly tears, but she has grown refined since then. He has seen it. He has treasured it. Has treasured it as if she were one of his own golden pearls, one of his many daughters born and raised to life at the palace. She is a credit to his court, and would make any lord a fine wife.

Not that he would ever give her away. Not that she will remain his spouse for more than the proscribed evening. But still, it is worth noting.

Having collected herself, she continues. "Rose told Mickey that the Djinn would come back. That he always came back. And that even if he didn't…well, she knew how to get them home."

"The Emergency Program?" he asks.

She nods gently. "Mickey wanted to activate it right away. He would have done it too, had he known how. But the Djinn never showed him. The Djinn never showed him anything about the Box. And Rose…Rose didn't want to leave."

"Because she believed the Djinn would return?"

She looks up at him, and he sees doubt in her eyes. "She wasn't sure," she says finally. "She…she thought he would. She thought he cared. But then…there was Sarah Jane, and he left her. And this Courtesan…she was…" The little dove closes her eyes, her face gone pale as milk. "She was beautiful and intelligent and…and everything that Rose was not. Oh, Rose knew she was pretty enough, all the blokes told her so. But then, she'd always known what those boys were after and she knew to take what they said with more than a few grains of salt. The Djinn was the first person to ever call her beautiful without any ulterior motives, and even he qualified his assessment. She wasn't what anyone would call witty, either. The Djinn himself told her again and again how she was just a stupid ape, and more than that he'd shown her. He'd shown her with every planet they'd visited, every time they'd leapt to. He'd made it clear with every action just how small and insignificant she was."

She opens her eyes and returns her attention to the dais. There is a dark resolve measured in her gaze. "Rose couldn't see him doing something like that to the lovely Courtesan. Not to the girl who he'd danced with and…" Her nose curls at the next word, "_Kissed_, within mere hours of knowing her. No, the distinction was quite clear." She sighs, pulling her silks to smoothness under her legs. "The Courtesan was a woman of…of breeding. Of quality and substance." She puts special emphasis on those words, and he knows where she must have heard them; in the women's chambers. Most of the ladies sent for his perusal were the daughters and virgin sisters of lords. It would not be fitting to offer less to the Sultan's bed, let alone to his bridal chamber. No, in their presence his dove must stick out like...well, like a wild animal in his household he supposes. Like her namesake. Pretty enough, and tamed to feed from your hand, but not a high born lady by any means. Not even human, by their standards. He could imagine them hissing such comments in _sotto voce_, perhaps assuming that she would not understand them, perhaps not caring if she did.

She laughs then, surprising him with its sad sound. "Rose," she says, staring firmly at her knees, "Never had a chance." He does not see the tear fall, but he sees the tiny spot of darkness mar her skirts. The damp patch it leaves is teardrop shaped, as if proclaiming its origin despite her bowed head and hidden eyes.

"Surely," he asks, providing a much needed distraction for her, "The Djinn knew a way back to Rose?"

"No," she says morosely, still with her eyes on her lap, "No, he didn't. He thought he'd be stuck in the past. Forced to take the slow path…for once."

Her response takes him aback. He cannot understand the Djinn. True, he had made no promises to the young Rose; and if he had, what djinn ever kept his promises? But still, to leave the poor girl so. To go off without a word of comfort, without a single goodbye. To blindly choose the court damsel in distress over Rose's devoted fellowship. It is incomprehensible. Even from his first inauspicious audience with his dove he had seen the potential in her. He had seen behind her horrid speech and distasteful manners to the core of true beauty beneath. She was a tightly curled bud, ready to break into full bloom at the first hint of spring sunlight. All she had needed was a little guidance. How could the Djinn, with all his vaunted perception, not have seen the same? And to just abandon her?! Well, it came very close to…to…well, it seemed almost a…_betrayal_.

He blinks at himself; at his mental use of that word. He remembers the last time he used that word. He wishes he did not remember- the pain is still too great. Seasons have opened and wound to their close again and again, and yet still it twists in his heart like a dagger of ice. Biting hard at his lower lip, he searches for something, _anything _to distract himself. But no, he is in the demon's grip now. Alas, no devilish servant ever had a touch so soft, so seemingly loving. The scent of incense wafts through the chamber, smelling like fine oils on warm and supple skin. Of jasmine blossoms tucked lovingly into coal black tresses. He groans inwardly at the imagined sensations, at the traitorous reaction of his own body.

Suddenly, he tastes blood. He has bitten through his own lip and yes, that is a satisfactory distraction. He looks at the girl and meets eyes full of concern. They are wide and dark, and she has half raised herself from the floor as if intending to get up and offer assistance. The fact that she has not is yet further proof of her newly acquired manners. She has not spoken, has not let on that she sees his distress. A man must always be a man before a woman, and she must not notice otherwise. But her worry is written across her brow like titles etched in gold leaf upon the spines of bound novels; drawn piecemeal so that each book of a many volume epic fits together like a puzzle, right to left, and forms the name of the work across the whole in a willowy script that is an artwork in itself. Concern for others has been the watchword of her life, the focus of her epic tale. It is the driving force behind her determination to love that which is inherently unlovable. To love without any hope of return. To be the perfect companion, come whatever may.

"What did he do?" he asks at last, breaking the silence.

"My Lord?" her voice quavers. She can pretend it is with fear of him, rather than for him. He knows better and alters his voice to make it sound a little less strained.

"The Djinn, what did he do? Did he find a way back?"

The worry does not leave her face, but it lessens, and her features smooth at his calming tone. "He returned, my Lord," she says, sounding far more confident than he had just moments before, "Five and a half hours later."

"Five and a half hours!" he roars, and immediately regrets his actions as she flinches away from him. He modulates his voice as he continues; it is not _she_ he is angry with. "And what did Rose do those five and a half hours?"

"She waited my Lord." It was the simplest answer in the world, and truly, the only one that could be given. He already knows her temperament, knows Rose's temperament, and he can imagine nothing less. "She sat down with her back to the Blue Box door and just kept telling Mickey off whenever he suggested that the Djinn might not come back."

"For five and a half hours?" he asks, still somewhat incredulous.

She nods. "The Djinn, when he got back, asked her how long it had been and told her that she should always wait that long for him."

"Was he joking?" he mumbles derisively.

"I…" she cocks her head. "I don't know. It was hard to tell, sometimes. The Djinn did have a weird sense of humor." This last is said with a touch of exasperation which he did not hear in any of her descriptions of being left stranded on an unfamiliar sky ship, in an even more unfamiliar time. She shrugs. "Rose believed him, though. She swore she would always wait five and a half hours. And she always did." She finishes so quietly he is not certain that she has said anything.

"And afterwards," she continues with greater volume, "The Djinn tried to get back to the Courtesan. He tried to bring her onto the ship, but he missed her. She was already dead in that time period and all he had from her was a letter." Her face darkens again, all traces of her former concern lost in its shadow. "He…he never showed it to Rose. She assumed it was personal and…" she breathes deeply, in resignation, "She knew he mourned the Courtesan in his own way, and she left him to it."

He considers the situation for a while, his chin resting upon his palm, and his elbow beneath balancing upon his knee. Light dances on the floor in broken patterns, falling from the window frames and drawing his eyes away from the girl. "It is not fair," he states, scrutinizing where the light falls.

"What is not fair, my Lord?"

"The Djinn should be punished for this…betrayal." He manages to say the word aloud, and without any pain. He does not manage to say it without invective, but then, it is deserved.

She merely shrugs. "Who could punish the Djinn my Lord?" she asks sensibly. "Who other than himself?"

He stares at her, flabbergasted. She is correct, of course. There is no point in arguing what _should_ be, in the face of what clearly _is_. No, she is too intelligent, his dove. Too perceptive. Too aware of her own precarious position to be fooled into dreaming of anything more. What is it that poet had written? The one whose words were so sweet that they were permitted even though they spoke against the teachings? He too spoke of human mortality with a certain resignation of mind, yet not of spirit. '_When you and I behind the Veil are passed_,' he quotes silently to himself, '_Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last, that of our Coming and Departure heeds as the Sea's self should heed a pebble cast.'_

This Rose may be the stuff of legend to him, but she could only make the tiniest ripple in the ocean that was the Djinn's existence. Her life and his own are of nothing, will come to nothing, are as ephemeral as those shafts of light through the casement (despite the Djinn's alleged assertions that light had some particulate substance as well as the properties of waves…a confused discussion which had once taken most of a night away from his dove's stories and which left neither of them any the wiser at its close). Alas, it is not fair. But then, what in this life is? Perhaps in the hereafter, things will be different.

She is not finished, and he wonders what she has left to tell with the sun already peaking over the horizon. She meets his questioning gaze with a proud look on her face. But her eyes, whose little betrayals she has hidden from him thus far, shimmer with pools of salt water. "And don't you think," she asks, her voice nearly breaking on the question, "That he does quite enough of that as it is?"


	12. Chapter 12

The well is bottomless.

He knows that's impossible; there are no absolutes in this life. No bottomless, no infinity, no forever. Even if this could conceivably be some hypothetical hole to China - tunneling through the Earth's molten core to come out on the other side - and assuming, too, that anything dropped into it would not, in fact, become affected by the pull of gravity upon its exit on the opposite end, but rather continue on its downward flight into the Earth's atmosphere and eventually out into the black of space…well, it was bound to run into some planet or star or other form of space trash eventually. There is no such thing as a bottomless well.

And yet, there it sits.

He leans out as far as he can over the stone lip, gripping on tightly to the edge despite the fact that his feet are planted firmly on the ground. He feels a swirling in his midsection, as if his stomach has already dropped into its depths. He's never been afraid of heights, but he's never been that fond of them either. Really, one can only hang by ones fingertips from the sides of only so many high structures before the whole experience starts to get wearing. It's enough to make one want to let go. Just let loose and have everything fall, fall far and fast and into place.

Only once did he let go, and no, it hadn't been the most pleasant experience of his long life. But it hadn't been the least pleasant either. Neither had the time he'd lost his grip. Then he'd been more shocked than frightened; more annoyed than anything. Hadn't appreciated the situation for its rarity, for the brief beauty of the visceral feelings it inspired. Terror and exhilaration and resignation all mixed up and turned about and molded into one confusing mass of emotions that you really didn't have time to sort out before their rather abrupt conclusion. Probably worth another examination, just in the interest of science and all. A subset of three, which is not statistically significant, mind, but is appreciably better than a subset of two. Jack could probably add his experiences to the calculation, as well. Might be worth it to ask him. Couldn't _hurt_ to ask him. No more than it hurt to be around him normally. Probably wouldn't hurt Jack any, either. Jack could be hurt, of course, despite his apparent immortality. And memories, especially, can be hurtful. Good memories as much as bad, perhaps more so. Interesting question, is falling a good or bad memory? Perhaps a bit of both? Perhaps something that would be difficult to find expression in any Earth languages. Why do these silly, thrill-seeking apes persist in jumping on roller coasters or throwing themselves off bridges with slim cords of elastic wrapped about their ankles? They do it for fun. They do it to prove they're alive, and he can't complain about that. Not when he throws himself into adventure after adventure with an unabashed abandon. No, nothing wrong with falling. Not exactly. Not _specifically_.

It's what comes after the fall that worries him. And bottomless or not, he can't see the outcome.

"I wouldn't," a voice croaks out behind him. He turns slowly about to face his addresser. She is an older woman…if he weren't 900 years old himself he might refer to her as a much older woman. Bent and brittle, her thin limbs and hanging skin completely fail to conceal the core of tempered iron tucked beneath the surface. Her hair is grey, trending to white, and her lips have the look some All Hallows Eve pumpkins mouths get after a week left rotting on the porch. She looks like somebody's beloved grandmother, down to the horn-rimmed glasses and pink sweater. He wonders if she knitted it herself, considers asking her, notices how the fine fuzz of the wool stands out from the fabric as though charged with static electricity, observes that the air in this dungeon is not particularly dry or conducive to static, detects certain additional tell-tale signs of appearance, scent, mannerism, magnetic field, entropic variation and time distortion which alert him that all is not as it seems, recollects that very little since their arrival in New York has turned out to be as it seems, speculates whether this is what is meant by a pricking of one's thumbs, notes that his thumbs seem to have very little to do with any of it, marvels at the evolutionary miracle of the opposable thumb, realizes he's gone off the beaten path just a smidge with this line of thought, appreciates the non-beaten path for all the adventure which lies in leaves no step has trodden black, reminds himself that someone not quite as she seems has accosted him with his back to an apparently bottomless well, and decides he should probably have something witty prepared to spout in his defense – and in that interminable stretch of thought, her eyes blink once seemingly very, very slowly.

"Notice I didn't say 'Don't'," she continues in a rasp, "Because you seem to me like the type of man who would take that as a challenge."

He doesn't deny it. It may not be a big red button that should never ever be pressed, but it certainly feels like one. From somewhere deep within the well's depths a cold wind stirs, and rises with an audible sigh to fill the cavern with its chill breath. He swallows, considering the old woman with suspicious eyes, before responding. "What's down there?"

"Oh," she says in a lilting voice he imagines she would use to read fairy stories to young children, "Many things. Many, many things. Mostly dead things."

"Ah," he says with great discomfort. She approaches the well, and taking her cane in one hand, places her other skeletal appendage upon its stony lip and peers down into the darkness. He backs away a step, her nearness causing a disquieting shift in the air about him. "Who are you?" he asks.

Black eyes shift in an immobile face and stare at him from around the metal rims of her spectacles. "I am called Frau Totenkinder."

"Seriously? Lady Child Death?" One eyebrow leaps to the stratosphere. "What, was Ms. Puppy Strangler already taken?"

"No," she replies in all seriousness, straightening from her position over the well and shifting to gaze at him over the half moon curves of her lenses. "But it seems Destroyer of Worlds was." His mouth shuts so quickly his teeth sting at their collision. "When you're as old as I am," she continues, not waiting for him to respond, "You start to collect names like spare pairs of shoes. Eventually you have one for every occasion. Why some," she smiles and his stomach turns, "Some you even get to pick for yourself. Isn't that right, Doctor?"

He refrains from shifting uncomfortably under her gaze. Folds his arms. Appraises her with cold eyes. "Who are you?" he repeats in a voice that brooks no joking evasion.

Her eyebrows perform their own dance beneath her white bangs. "I had heard you were supposed to be intelligent."

"And I thought the Carrionites would have learned their lesson the first time."

She shakes her head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Witches," he says, cocking his head and leaning forward. "Or so they'd lead one to believe." He advances a threatening step towards her, and is momentarily pleased to see her nervously edge away. "Really, they're just foolish old women with very advanced DNA replication technology and a penchant for bad rhymes." Her brows lower and he gets the distinct impression that one of his taunts, at least, has hit its mark. Thus encouraged he continues, "Something of an obsession with naming things too, as I recall."

She laughs dryly behind lips pursed closed. "It's not the name that matters," she says, "It's the will behind it."

"The will for what?" he asks, wondering exactly where Bigby had run off to after directing him with a brief wave to where in the dungeons the 'witching well' was located and what on Earth could be taking the man so long to return.

"Magic," she says, and upon hearing his dismissive snort continues, "You don't believe in magic Doctor?"

"No. No I do not." He uncrosses his arms in a show of unconcern and leans back against the stone sides of the well. He refuses to show even the slightest hint of anxiety around this strange woman, despite the air of negative energy surrounding her. "No magic, no gods, no divine intervention. It's all rubbish, and I've seen enough of the universe to know."

"And yet you yourself are doused in it," she muses. "Curious, indeed."

"Pardon?" The more sarcastic of his eyebrows makes itself known by skipping into his hairline.

"You are telling me Doctor, that in all your years, in all your…_vast_ experience," his brow darkens at her condescending tone, "You have never experienced something unexplainable."

"No," he says, all seriousness now. The time for games is over. Paradox is about to rain down on their heads and he's having a war of words with some dried up old hag in the dusty basement of a New York apartment building which is most definitely bigger on the inside.

"Hmmmm," she hums, cocking her head at him. "Never met a species you couldn't identify. Never heard a prophecy that came true."

"Being sensitive to timelines is not magic," he asserts. He's having a difficult time keeping a lid on his anger with this woman and it's nearly driving him mad.

"Never met someone you connected with instantly, even though there was no logical reason for it." She takes a step towards him and he quits his leaning position. As if only then realizing what a precarious position it was, his eyes turn unconsciously towards the black circle of the well's opening.

"Coincidence," he explains. "Chemistry. Or time sensitivity again. Look, are you getting anywhere with this?" He drags his eyes away from the pit; finds himself focusing on his trainers.

"Science, magic. Once again, not the name that matters," the old woman croaks. "She's not down there, you know."

The Doctor's head whips up so quickly he's mildly surprised he doesn't hear the crack of a tiny sonic implosion. The witch doesn't bat an eyelash at his reaction, but he can see, now, that she's holding her breath. A look of momentary apprehension flashes in her eyes, despite her calm exterior. It's funny, he can almost feel his eyes burning. He wonders if she can. "Who's not down there?" he asks, taking care to modulate his voice to something in the low range of human hearing.

"Whoever it is that you're looking for." She glances down and unhooks the brass clasp on her large handbag. "Your heart grows cold," she quotes, "A north wind blows, and carries down the distant-"

"Don't," he says, and his face is inches away from hers. Her forearm is gripped in his fist, caught in the act of opening her purse. Her eyes stare darkly at him over the tops of her glasses. Her mouth draws into a wavering line. He thrusts her arm away from him, letting go, and stepping away with a half turn in the process. "Don't finish that," he says addressing the well and the dungeon and the darkness in the shadows.

"Touchy," she admonishes, digging into the recesses of her bag. She sighs heavily and insincerely, "The young have no respect for the elderly anymore."

"Not that young," he responds, still refusing to face her.

"It wouldn't have done anything," she continues, ignoring him. "It was wrong to begin with. Sloppy work. Hearts not heart, and the North Wind, hmmph," she shakes her head and apparently finding what she was seeking, removes it from the bag's contents, "He never brings anything nice. Here."

He can tell she is holding something out to him. Something small and metallic and…blue? It's somewhat hard to tell looking out of the corner of his eye and he unhappily admits that he must turn towards her at some point. He relents and fixes his steely glare upon the object held between her fingers.

It is a key. Cold silver metal shines dully back at him. He reaches out his own hand and, not wanting to touch her again, slides his open palm several inches beneath her outstretched appendage. She lets go, the key dropping silently through space before landing flat, and heavier than he would have expected, upon his hand.

The world spins.

The world is always spinning. Spinning on its axis ten times faster than a bullet exits the muzzle of a gun, spinning around the sun at 108,000 kilometers per hour, spinning across the universe in one outer spiral arm of the Milky Way Galaxy 37,800 kilometers every minute, the Milky Way itself rushing headlong into its closest neighbors at the breakneck pace of 290 kilometers per second, and expanding in line with the rest of the universe in a heedless plunge through space without meaningful points of reference in something close on the speed of light. The world is always revolving, turning, twirling, circling, dancing, and he feels it. He _always_ feels it; swirling in his gut, prickling at the stern of his mind, ghosting in an electric buzz over the backs of his wrists, pulling at the base of his spine.

But never like this.

He should say, very rarely like this. He's experienced something similar before. He experiences it each time he regenerates, the sudden re-emergence of awareness like a computer system rebooting itself. He senses it too, whenever there is a paradox on the horizon; the precursor to Reapers. And yes, a paradox is brewing. He recognized the telltale signs long before feeling the inherent wrongness of it all. He's working on it, has no intention of letting it lie. Its no threat, not to him anyway, and not to the universe. This universe.

He feels this way sometimes when the timelines align themselves. When a million possibilities fluttering about his head like moths around a candle flame suddenly come together, coalesce, and as if sensing gravity for the first time in their short lives, drop to earth in a great glowing mass of potentiality, only to extinguish upon impact. He almost sees them now. Lights waltzing purple and green and brown and white before his dazed eyes. Red pinpricks of static behind closed eyelids. Snowflakes scattering in an intricate ballet. No, not snowflakes. Ash. Ash from spaceships burned up on reentry.

He shakes his head and squeezes his hand into a fist. The teeth of the key bite into his palm.

It is stars and planets and dark matter whirling almost eagerly towards a black hole. It is the chaotic din of a warming orchestra suddenly bursting into the pitch perfect crescendo of _Beethoven's 5th_. It is a thousand different plotlines coming together in the author's mind and suddenly making sense in a way he never before conceived. Every legend ever written, a collection every fairy tale in Grimm, a single classic story of love and loss and woe, one point of climax in a millennia's worth of exposition, rising action and dénouement.

His timeline.

Existence shudders to a stop, resets, and begins again upon a single course.

He looks at her, takes in the sweater and the glasses and the grey hair. Looks past the secretive smile playing across her nonexistent lips. Looks into her eyes, deep pools of the soul, and sees a mirror. "Where did you get this," he manages to gasp out.

"Now that is a funny story," she says, her tone almost teasing. "I found it."

"Found it where," he croaks. His throat feels like sandpaper. How is that even possible?

"In my knitting bag," she explains, flicking the closure of her purse shut. "Just a few days ago. Right before that raging bitch Ba-Red Riding Hood showed up. It's been glowing off and on ever since you and your little friend arrived; I figured you'd know what to do about it."

The air is hot entering his trachea. It is heavy. It should be cold and damp. They're in a dungeon for goodness sakes! It filters with no little difficulty down to his heaving lungs. Shouldn't his respiratory bypass be kicking in? Would his respiratory bypass be kicking in? "You-" He swallows once. "You've no idea how it got there, then? In your bag, I mean?"

"No," she says, eyeing him suspiciously. "I don't."

She's telling the truth. He knows it. She's telling the truth because she's scared. He can see it. Hell, he can feel it. He can feel it reflected in himself. Scared of him? Perhaps. She should be. Scared of something, that was certain. Scared of losing something, losing it forever. "Do you?" she asks, and she truly is curious. She does not like not knowing something, and in that way, amongst others, they are alike. She does not like being in the dark. There is danger in the dark. Even for those who thrive in darkness, who survive off that which causes others to tremble in fear. Who feast on children's nightmares like they were candy.

As if in a dream, he watches his hand drop, the key tucked tightly inside his fist. He feels it slip inside his trouser pocket. Senses without touch as it falls into its depths. "No," he replies, repaying her honesty with some of his own, "But I have a few ideas."


	13. Chapter 13

"Gingerbread houses, that's what he called it. Sweet and ephemeral and ultimately deadly. But Rose didn't care. She really was just a child, especially compared to the Djinn, and children live in the moment. Children only see the candy, they never think there might be a razor blade tucked inside." She seems to feel the need to explain this to him in detail. "It's naïve to be that trusting. Stupid, really, but that was Rose for you. She never thought about the consequences."

It is a measure of how much their interactions have changed since her arrival that she honestly asks his opinion. "Do you think," she asks, "That it was wrong of her?"

He rests his pipe against his knee and blows the smoke out from his nose in a leisurely manner before answering. "To be trusting? To go against the Djinn's wishes? No, my dove, I think it was that very curious combination of rebelliousness and naiveté which the Djinn most treasured in Rose."

She blushes visibly. "But, it was the second time," she argues, "The second time she ignored his warnings to see her father."

He takes the smooth end of the pipe between his teeth, but does not inhale. Rather, he thinks for a moment, before replying, "Who is the Djinn to deny her the right to see her patriarch?"

"He…he's the Djinn," she explains, as if that very fact is all that is necessary for explanation. "He knows things…and he pretty much told her she wasn't ever meant to know her dad. That her dad was dead, that it was an irreversible fact, and that if she went wishing for more from him…well, it was sure to only cause her pain in the end."

"And did it?" he asks, before she can continue.

"Well," she shifts uncomfortably in her silks, "Yes. Maybe. I don't know. Rose always wondered what would have happened if she never went chasing after Pete from the balloon universe. Maybe none of the things that followed…the horrible things…but I'm getting ahead of myself…maybe her whole story would have turned out differently in the end." Through the blue smoke of his pipe she appears wistful, almost sad. "That's the problem with the future. The Djinn always said, 'You never really know what's going to happen until it does, and by then, it's too late to do anything about it.' Even with a time machine, you can never go back and see how things would have turned out if you…oh, who knows, turned right instead of left, for instance." She gives him a knowing look.

He agrees, nodding, "One is never told what might have been."

"So maybe," she goes on, "If Rose had listened to the Djinn…if she had done what he asked and stayed away from her father-"

"If she had not pushed the large red button that should never, ever be pressed?" he chides, before she can belittle her heroine further. She smiles widely at his reference. "Come, my dove, the Djinn is hardly one to be pointing fingers in this matter."

She lowers her head and watches as her hands fold in her lap, the fingers intertwining. "You are right of course," she says, meekly.

Of course, he echoes in his mind. "So how did the Djinn and Rose get into the great house?"

She lifts her head and takes a deep breath, finding again the rhythm of her tale. "They used the magic paper and pretended that they were servants. As such they were given access to the grounds and were able to circulate amongst the party guests offering food and drink." He nods thoughtfully, taking another draft of his pipe. It was a good plan, servants in a house know everything. They are like the walls of the home itself, and hear all that goes on within. "Rose's dad…the man Pete…he made a speech, and he introduced Rose's mother, who wasn't really Rose's mother, but she looked just like her. Only she'd never had a daughter named Rose…instead, she had a terrier with the same name."

He chokes on his smoke. Coughing and laughing in turn, he bends over at his waist trying to regain his breath. Through watery eyes he looks at his dove, and sees she is not amused.

"The Djinn thought it was funny, too," she comments, without emotion.

"I am sorry my dove," he says, without much real remorse, "But it is, at least a tiny bit, amusing."

She heaves a put upon sigh. "Would my Lord think it funny to know he had never been born and rather was replaced in his parents' affections by a dog."

He ponders a moment before replying. "I think I would first be glad my parents avoided the many frustrations I put them through in my youth, but after that I would pity them, for having, in failing to conceive me, somehow missed their finest accomplishment."

At that, she stares at him curiously. Turning her head sideways and squinting her eyes a bit. "Sometimes," she murmurs, "You remind me of him. The Djinn, that is." He feels a cold chill whisper its way down his back upon her words. He takes the pipe again between his teeth and sucks in slowly in an attempt to calm himself with the numbing heat of the smoke. He is not sure whether to take his dove's comment as compliment or criticism. Is not sure how she intends him to take it. Decides to let the comment slide and hope there is nothing else in her memory which would connect him to the fierce demigod.

"Rose talked with Pete not-her-father," she goes on more steadily, "And the woman called Jackie Tyler in that universe. And at first they both seemed happy to talk to her even though neither had ever seen her before, almost as if they sensed she was somehow a close confidant. But then they changed all of a sudden. It was as though they saw her for the imposter she was. They seemed affronted that she would be trying to speak with them about their personal lives."

"Rose knew then, knew she shouldn't have bothered. She shouldn't have pried like that, but she just couldn't help it. It's just…" she turns huge brown eyes upon him, as if begging him to understand. "They were so unhappy. She could see they still loved each other desperately, and yet their marriage was falling apart! She felt like there had to be something she could do to help them. She spent all this time saving the world and other planets and the like, but here she couldn't even save her parents from destroying themselves. It was pathetic. And what's worse, she felt somehow…responsible. As if, maybe if they had a daughter…if she had been there for them the whole time instead of just gate crashing Jackie's 40th birthday…well, maybe things wouldn't have turned out the way they did."

He sets the pipe down upon the arm of his throne. "Perhaps," he muses, "Or perhaps things would have been worse. Perhaps alternate Rose would have become a pawn in their battles. Perhaps she would have been caught between the two during all the little squabbles and differences that occur in married life. Perhaps she would have tipped the scales and turned their somewhat tattered affections to cold-hearted hate." He shrugs. "Life is rarely the bliss we imagine it might be. Regardless, Rose should not have felt responsible for her parents' problems."

But she did. She would. He could see it still on his dove's expressive face. She cared for them, barely knowing the two, and worried about them. And there was a deeper pain residing there too, one she had not yet expressed. "What happened next?" he asks, hoping to draw her secrets out of her with the story.

She sighs, the weight of the proverbial world pushing the hot air from her lungs. "Then the metal men attacked and everything went to hell."

There is a dark sarcastic tone to her expression that shocks him more than her use of mild profanity. "Dove?" he queries softly, and she looks up at him. "Metal men?"

Her lips purse. "The word I would use in my own language is 'robot', but that won't make any sense to my Lord."

"Like the Golem?" he questions, and she shakes her head. He thinks some more. "The clockwork people?"

"Sort of, but no," she sighs in frustration. "They were made of metal like the clockwork people, but these were part human too. They had living parts and…the ability to reason. But they had no emotions, and sort of a hive mentality…no real concept of individuality."

"Like the Daleks?" he finishes, after a moment's thought.

She pauses, then nods. "Yes, although they did not look like Daleks. They looked like people with metal where their skin should be." Her drawing skills have improved somewhat over her months of confinement within the bridal suites. She is no artist, but he now has some concept of how the Djinn's terrible arch enemies appear. He has been collecting her simple pictures into a book, to use for reference in her storytelling. He thinks to tell her to make him a representation of these metal men, when she breaks in on his thoughts, speaking her own aloud. "And that almost made it worse. They were so close to human, you could almost think that they were. You expected them to…I don't know…have human souls, human responses…but they didn't, they'd had that portion of their character removed."

"Except some of them," she goes on, with some trepidation in her manner, "Some of them _remembered_. They remembered who they were…who they had been, that is, before they were chopped up and had their brains hooked into a machine. They remembered their lives and their families and…having emotions." Her face goes dark. "Those that did," she is almost whispering, and she swallows heavily. "Their screams were horrible." A shadow passes over her face, like a cloud shifting across the full orb of the moon.

"Is it so bad to remember?" he has to ask. "I would think that those who did would revel in their humanity, would be thankful for the bountiful gift of memory they retained."

She is still. There is no worrying of her bottom lip with perfect white squares of teeth, no biting of the little folds of skin at her cuticles, no dark crease to make a scar of her brow. He can see her fighting herself internally with the conscious decision not to resort to the base mannerisms she favored in the past. He knows she is deftly composing a response to his somewhat esoteric question. "My Lord," she begins slowly, "Have you ever thought that perhaps you felt too much?" He returns her intense gaze with a quizzical look. "Have you ever had so much pain…so much sorrow…that you thought you would burst from it? That you prayed you would, prayed for anything that would take away the hurt?"

He does not answer, does not feel prepared to. And he does not need to, she sees the answer on his tortured features.

"If you had," she continues more quickly, "You might understand just a little a bit what a curse it can be to have emotions. To be alive!"

He runs his tongue around the inside of his mouth. It is dry as a bone. "Life is suffering, and our existence here merely a dream - nay a nightmare!- before our blessed ascension into the hereafter." It is the answer of a religious leader, the response his many teachers would want him to give. "It is our due as people to be in pain while on the earth, so as to better appreciate the great beauty of what we will be given."

She nods. "Humans are creatures of emotion. It is what sets us apart from the rocks and the trees and the winds of the air…those that aren't sentient, that is…and it would be a cruel sad world for us without feelings. That is what the metal men's creator did not understand, that it is those things which make life worth living. No, he could only see life for itself. He was so afraid of death that he forgot that there are worse things, worse possibilities. And those of his creations which remembered…well, they suffered the consequences of his shortsightedness."

He claps to break the silence which follows her words, and a slave boy comes running to crouch at his feet. He waves dismissively at the hookah and returns his attention to his dove. The contraption is gone along with the silent footed boy the next time he looks. "Why then did the metal men not remember those parts of their former lives which were good? Why did they not concentrate on happier emotions?"

"My Lord, they did." Her manner is surprised, almost as if she found him slow for not seeing the obvious answer right away. "It was those memories, those good memories, which most tortured them. The knowledge that they could never fully experience such things again…that they were slaves to their own programming…that their former families and loved ones would run screaming in terror from their hulking metal forms…it was that, my Lord, which killed the metal men. They shut down their systems, committed self murder rather than live with the loss."

He can do nothing but shake his head at that. No suffering is justification for suicide. Such an act is a direct affront to the One God. It is throwing in his face all that which he, though his many blessings, has seen fit to provide. No, he cannot feel sorrow for these fake persons, though he can tell his dove does. Well, that is her lot in life, to feel kinship with even the most strange and inhuman of beings. How else could one explain her strange obsession with the Djinn? "Why did they not find some other cause to make their lives worth living?"

"They did not have much time to, my Lord, but that again would be skipping ahead in my tale. Does my Lord have any other questions?"

He narrows his eyes at her. "Yes," he says, taking on a crafty tone. "You mentioned a creator for these metallic beasts. Was there some great puppeteer behind their movements."

She is unsurprised by his perception. She knows him well enough by now. Knows his ability to pick out minute details from even the most complex and multi-layered plotline. "Yes, my Lord. There was. He was an old man, close to death, and certain in his own mind that he had a plan to bring the world to everlasting peace."

"And did he?"

She shakes her head slowly, sadly. "No my Lord, he did not. He thought if everyone was the same then there would be no more hate…no more wars."

"Would that not be the case my dove?" he cannot help but prod her in this regard. She is so opinionated, and he delights in her forceful support of the strange ideals she has been raised with.

"Yes," she admits with a huff, her shoulders bouncing in her ire. He smiles behind his hand, secretly entranced by the indignant flush to her cheeks. "But what kind of life would that be. Everyone exactly the same as everyone else. Doing the same thing, day in-day out. Mindlessly obedient to some all-powerful overlord who dictates everything about their lives. No!" she asserts vehemently. "I'd rather die than live like that. No poetry or song, because there's nothing to inspire them. No humor, no joy." She turns her eyes down, apparently to examine her perfectly filed fingernails. "No love," she says, silently.

After a moment, her shoulders square and her head raises. "And the metal men seemed in agreement with me on that point." He slowly arches one eyebrow at her, keeping the rest of his facial features stiff. "I mean…" she says, flushing further, and stuttering in her attempt to keep up pretext, "With Rose."

He smiles. "No matter, my dove, your point is well taken. Memories, feelings, individuality; it is these things which are our greatest gifts. They are what make us who we are, and to lose them is to lose everything. To do so and still live would be…a half life at best…a torture beyond imagining. To desire nothing more than to be human, and to be forever denied the right of your birth. No, not even life eternal could make up for such a loss."

Her eyes soften in the dim light of the candles. He can tell that she is pleased with what he has said. He is almost offended. What?! Did she think him incapable of emotion? Immune to feeling? Impervious to love? No, if anything, he is far too susceptible to such things. There had been a time when he had let his emotions rule over his better judgment, and look what evil had spawned from that. Yet not even that…disappointment…could make him as hard as she seemed to imagine him. He wonders yet again what her jailers have told her. He has become hard over the years, it is true. He has had to. What ruler has not found the need to act without emotion for the betterment of his country and subjects? For their protection and well being?

"Although I must say," he murmurs in consideration, curling fingers thoughtfully beneath his beard. "Trained to war-craft, such individuals would make a capital army."

"You think so, my Lord?"

He nods. "Obedient. Fearless. Indefatigable, and with metal skin for armor. Such battalions could march roughshod over a thousand worlds such as the one you describe." Suddenly, he has a different picture in his head than the one she has painted there. Not of metal glaring in reflected sunshine, but of wood. He shivers, then; the audience room abruptly seeming too big, too full of shadows for his comfort. A legion such as that would be enough to strike cowardice into any sane man.

"Still," his dove interjects, "They lack a certain necessary quality." She smiles, and it is smug. "They lack personal ingenuity. Independent thought. They work unbelievably well as a team, but cannot change their tactics on the fly. Is it not better to have the benefit of multiple minds assessing and adapting to a given situation?"

He admires her analysis, though he does not believe she understands. Women, he theorizes, cannot be expected to know much of the ways of warfare and his dove, it seems, has not completely outgrown the naive little girl of her tales. "Independent thought leads to rebellion," he theorizes.

"Rebellion is not necessarily a bad thing." He looks sharply at her, surprised. "Those who are in power are not always right."

He thinks on that. It goes against all sensible understanding; is close to blasphemy. Those who rule do so by divine right, passed down to them by the One God through the bloodlines of those people he most favors. To imply fallibility upon them is to impugn the One God himself. And yet….he has seen the mistakes of rulers and generals alike lead to the ruin of their peoples. Mistakes, and not necessarily the will of deities. He shakes his head. No, he was speaking of tactics. Of the performance of the rank and file, not the ultimate decisions of those on high. "Yes, my dove," he admits, "But an army is much like a well oiled machine. If any one part does not work exactly as it is supposed to, the whole will fail to perform."

"Did we not just determine that humanity was superior to machines?"

His mouth opens, and closes silently. Her look is cunning and he frowns at her presumption. She thinks to play him? To battle with words? "You split hairs," he says, his voice a dark warning. "We spoke of emotions being a great gift. There is no place for love or mercy or empathy on a battlefield."

She sees is look, and is suitably chastised. She lowers her head deferentially, but he senses a remaining tenseness in her shoulders, as if her countenance is bowed against her will. Rebellion, he thinks, and is displeased. "Of course my Lord," her voice wavers out from beneath her hidden face, "You know much more of such things than I."

Her head raises, her look composed, "But allow me this one question." A slow smile spreads across her face. "One million heartless men of steel, or one man – or djinn, as the case may be - with all his imperfect emotions and individual inspiration, which do you think will win this war?"


	14. Chapter 14

Badger didn't know just what to make of it.

It wasn't the wind, although that was odd enough in itself, the way it picked up out of nothing and blew into nothing, bending the long field grasses down upon their heads. No, the wind was not what stopped him in his tracks; what drew him erect to freeze like a prey animal caught by the headlights of an approaching vehicle. It was the sound. The groaning wail that echoed amongst the farmhouses, sounding as if it came from every direction at once. It was like nothing he had ever heard before…and yet…and yet he could not help but feel that it was somehow so familiar to him. As familiar as the echo of his own heartbeat, or perhaps that double beat one only retains the vaguest infantile impressions of from one's time in the womb. Certainly, it put him in mind of such things; of birth and life…and of death too. Of the endless circle of existence; one generation tumbling heedlessly into the next. Of the world's tireless ellipses about its life-giving star. Of the passage of time, of which he, even with his greatly extended existence, would experience so little…but which someone, somewhere, he felt certain, would see all of. Would see, and know and remember.

He shook his head in confusion. When had he felt like this before? He couldn't remember. The memory was insubstantial, like a summer breeze slipping ghost-like through his outstretched claws. And what was that light anyway? If it was those shoe children again acting up after their bedtimes he was going to have to have a word with their mother.

He turned toward the source of the light, and immediately had to duck his head to shade his oversensitive night-vision with the curve of the visor he kept cocked perpetually over his brow. Whatever it was, it was blue. Not a car then. A flare? No, not bright enough. He peered somewhat painfully past the cerulean glow now suffusing every surface to the rectangular shape that could barely be made out behind it. After a moment or two of intense study, he could make out a door. He blinked again, hard. His black diamond eyes glittered azure beneath a hastily raised shading paw.

The door burst open and Rose Red barreled out onto the dirt driveway of the Farm. She came up short of her own accord, head thrown back in surprise as she took in her surroundings. A gasp of awe escaped her throat as her head tilted towards the heavens. In the strange light from the blue door, her hair had turned a garish shade of violet and it curled about her chin as she stood with her mouth open, utterly transfixed by the starscape above her. Behind her, the strange light began to die, the odd screeching sound disappearing with it. As both winked out of existence, Badger ambled over to where Rose stood and silently observed her…observing.

"Miss Rose," grunted Badger, "Did you forget something?"

Rose Red blinked, and slowly lowered her head from its lofty position to consider the significantly more lowly individual stationed at knee height. "Stinky?" Rose replied, sounding surprised, "No, I need…wait…why would you ask that?"

"Because you just left for Fabletown in the truck a few minutes ago."

Rose blinked in surprise. "But…but that was over a day ago," she stammered.

"No," said a strange man in a dark blue suit ranging up beside her, "That's now. Or a few minutes ago, to be precise." Badger split his appraisal equally between Rose Red's obvious fluster and the unknown human's smug superiority, as a third person approached the group. The third individual was a woman not unlike Rose herself. Certainly, they shared the same fur color, though through years of association with humanity he had come to an understanding that such things were not as indicative of relation as they would be in his world. She did not seem threatening. The man, on the other hand…. Badger wrinkled his nose, scenting carefully, and reassessed his original impressions. Not human, he thought, not exactly.

"So this is where you work?" the crimson haired woman asked. Rose turned to her and nodded.

"Yeah," Rose replied, with a wave of an upturned palm. "Welcome to the Farm. We don't ask you to wipe your feet here. In fact, I rather suggest against it. You never know where one of the residents might decide to leave a present."

Badger lifted a paw, flicked up the visor slung low over his face, and tilted his head so as to take in the full height of the odd man. Blinking tiny black beetle eyes, he examined the two newcomers. "Who're they?" he asked, directing his attention back to Rose Red.

"They're friends," she murmured, still gathering her wits. Shaking her head as if to clear it, she continued. "Stinky, I need you to gather all the Farm Fables together- and that means everyone, the revolutionaries included. I've got something important to tell them."

Badger cocked his head in curiosity, as the third person made a little squeak of glee. He arched one heavy eyebrow at her and saw that she had clasped her hands together in excitement and didn't seem to be able to take her eyes off of him. He was not a field mouse to go trembling every time something larger than himself took a more than passing interest, but still, her actions were unnerving. Who was she? She acted as though she'd never seen a Farm Fable before. Perhaps she hadn't, he amended to himself. Most Fabletown residents had never taken the time to visit the Farm. It was one of the many complaints of his fellows. He decided to let it go. "Bagheera too?" he asked instead, "His cage doesn't have wheels or anything."

"No, no…we'll have to tell him separately, but another thing, we need Weyland to start sorting through all those weapons he made before. During the revolution."

Rose Red could hardly have said anything that surprised Badger more, not if she had indicated that this man was himself the Adversary and the woman actually her long lost cousin escaped from the Homelands at last.

"You…" he stuttered, "You need Weyland's animal weaponry? Whatever for?!"

Rose Red sounded frustrated when she answered. "Stinky I'd rather not have to tell this story ten different times when I can save time telling everyone at once. Now will you please just go gather everyone together?"

He stared a long moment at her, flicking quick sidelong glances over her unnamed companions, before turning around with a grumble and heading off to rally the farm. It was not an easy task, by any means. Not all of the Fables were naturally nocturnal, and many had spent the better portion of the day chasing that silly, chicken-legged hut of Baba Yaga's all over hell's half-acre. Goodness knew why it chose this of all days to awaken and go on a blind rampage. It was now chained down in the barn with some of smith Weyland's most potent magical bonds. Badger wondered if he was expected to summon _that_ thing to Rose Red's pow-wow as well.

Once everyone that could be gathered was, Rose clambered atop of the Farm's largest tractor, the one Weyland used to clear the big field. The strange man and his fire haired friend were arranged stoically at her feet. "Listen up everyone," Rose Red announced, "There's trouble in Fabletown. Big trouble. And we need your help."

The silence that met this declaration was deafening.

Before it could become too uncomfortable, an angry voice called out from the back of the crowd of animals and other non-humanoid Fables. "And why should that be of any of our concern? When has Fabletown ever raise a finger at our behest?"

There were mutinous murmurs of asset from the gathered crowd. Rose Red opened her mouth to quell them, but was beaten to the punch.

"For shame," King Noble intoned in his deep, commanding voice. "Mutinous reprobates. Did the outcome of the ill-fated rebellion teach you nothing!" He shook his heavy mane in derision, "We must stand together with our neighbors to the south, or fall separately. You yourself, monkey-king, like many others here tonight, owe your life to the mercy of the human Fables in the city who spared your worthless hide after your myriad acts of disobedience. For shame!"

More than just the shaggy haired orangutan hung their heads at this tirade. The lion sniffed heavily and turned his soft, yellow eyes upon Rose Red. "My people are with you, Miss Rose. Thou knowest we have always been faithful to the cause."

Rose gave a crooked half-smile. "Thanks King," she said, "But I was sort of counting on your lot. No, it's the 'mutinous reprobates' I'm trying to appeal to." She allowed her gaze to sweep across the congregation as a whole. "Fabletown is under attack from minions of the Adversary." She waited a moment for that fact to sink in, and for the responsive rumblings of the crowd to die down. Badger felt his own pulse speed up at the thought. The Adversary. The _Adversary_. That _would_ change most Fables' minds, even the Farm discontents. They may reject the seemingly foreign rule of their human counterparts. They may resent the way their concerns had been repeatedly ignored by the city Fables. They may hate this life of confinement within the borders of the Farm. But none of them would miss the chance to press their jaws to the gullet of the Adversary. Badger felt his blood boil at the very mention of their ancient enemy's name.

Rose raised a hand to calm the mass to silence. "He sent wooden soldiers," she went on, "Bloodless killers, no doubt armed with mundy weaponry, to threaten our adopted homeland." The air filled with grumbles and growls, with squawks and screeches, with crows and lows. Fury writhed in a swift undercurrent to the normally idyllic, pastoral lifestyle of the Farm inhabitants. This was where the wild things were. They would fight, oh yes. They might have their differences, but in this one thing they were in complete accord with the city folk. No one would call the Farm Fables cowards. No sir.

"Mayor Cole," Rose raised her voice to be heard over the growing tumult, "Begs all loyal Fables living at the Farm to come now to the aid of their city cousins." Badger could tell she was reciting bits from a prepared speech. Flowery language was never Rose's way. But it was the way of a war leader, and that's what she was portraying right then. "He has further authorized me to make this offer to all Fables who stood against the established government in the late Farm uprising. The sentences of hard labor you are serving for your crimes will be lifted should you choose to fight in the upcoming battle to protect Fabletown."

There was even more noise following this announcement. "If we survive, you mean," cried the Mother Bear, her paws tightly grasped in her husband's comforting grip. "Better a century of punishment then being dead on some city street." The crowd began to get rowdy. They pushed in against the tractor, forcing the two strangers back up against it. The red haired woman scuttled up behind Rose Red on top of the machine, while the odd man in the suit stood with his feet on the bottom rung of the ladder. He was watching the proceedings with great interest.

"Better an honorable death than a life spent in debased ignominy," rumbled Baloo, in his wise way.

"Yeah!" agreed a vicious little flower, hopping up on one of the tall tractor wheels with a Swiss Army Knife in his grip.

The red haired woman was looking about herself in wide-eyed amazement. Aghast, she leaned forward and whispered in Rose's ear, "Is that a…a _sunflower_?! With arms and…and feet?!" Badger spared a glance for her and saw her lips drawn back from her teeth in displeasure. "He seems…kinda angry."

"He's always like that," Rose explained blithely, with a dismissive wave of her hand, the turned her full attention back on the conglomeration of Farm Fables. "All who want to join the Fabletown forces, give your name to Mustard Pot Pete and he'll keep a list. Those who don't," her eyes grow dark, "You're on packing duty. Help Weyland load as much of the animal weapons and artillery as you can fit onto every truck the Farm has. We'll need everything we can get."

After she finishes there was a pause, as if no one was really sure where they were going, or what they were supposed to do on arrival. "Well," she encouraged, waving her arms exasperatedly, "Move!"

The Fables moved as one, crashing into each other in their hurry. Badger moved towards Rose Red and pulled himself up on the tractor. As her second in command, it was understood that he'll be following her wherever she choose to go. He got an unasked-for helping hand from the suited man, and a boost up to where his leader was standing, observing the calm chaos. Badger tried not to shudder too much at his touch.

"Stinky," Rose Red said, finally noticing him, "I just had a horrible thought. If we load all the weapons on the farm trucks, how will we get everyone in them to transfer everyone down to the city? We just don't have that kind of space." She turned eyes full of concern and ringed in dark circles toward him, as if hoping against hope that he might have the answer. "How are we ever going to transfer a makeshift army of animals and the like along with all their guns to New York City before tomorrow evening?!" He voice raised in desperation.

"That shouldn't be a problem," the new woman said with a smile.

"How do you figure?" Rose asked.

"Well, the TARDIS," her friend cocked her head over her shoulder at the blue box which had so suddenly and mysteriously appeared out of nowhere, "You may have noticed, is bigger on the inside."

"What?!" the man shouted, abashed, whipping around from his place on the narrow foothold.

"All your big guns – and by that I mean your Fable friends, cause I don't think we'll be takin' any real guns thank-you-very-much – can fit inside with room to spare."

"What?!?!" shrieked the man in a nearly girlish manner

"Oh, hush you," the woman placated, patting him on the arm. "It's all for a good cause, right?"

"But…but…" The man appeared at a loss for words for what very well may have been the first time in his long life. "They're big," he complained, sounding like a petulant child. "They could hurt the…the floor…and the controls. Some pretty delicate controls in there, you know."

"Oh right," his companion rolled her eyes dramatically. "As if I haven't seen you take a mallet to those _precious_ controls a thousand times before. Look, we said we would help, they need some quick transport, and we can provide. It's as easy as that."

"Easy," said the man, looking a tad green. "Right."

What followed next was a study in organized confusion. It had been centuries since the Fables had practiced mobilization tactics. But still, the Farm Fables were probably better off than their counterparts, having gone to war (of a sorts) only a few years prior. It was quickly decided that the Farm's trucks would be, for the most part, utilized to transport guns and ammunition. The majority of the Fable-folk, especially the very large and conspicuous ones, would go in the disturbing, squealing, blue box.

Badger stood by Rose Red's side throughout, watching the preparations. There was something he wanted to tell her, something he needed to tell her, but he wasn't sure how to go about it. He climbed onto the top rail of a wooden fence that Rose was leaning against, and found himself a spot comfortably near Rose's ear. "Miss Rose," he said, lifting himself a little taller with his paw upon a steadying fence post, and addressing her in a calculated half-whisper. "Are you sure about this?"

She looked at him quizzically, "Of course, Stinky. Why?"

Badger gave a quick glance over his shoulder to where the suit-man was holding the door of his blue box open with one hand and watching with some trepidation as a parade of ungulates passed through. "That man," he started, turning to face Rose, "Doesn't smell right."

Rose lifted her hand absently and rubbed it behind her ear. "Bigby signed off on him," she said, "He's not on the side of the Adversary."

"It's not that," Badger hissed. He didn't know how to explain this to her, a human, who could never truly be expected to understand the wondrous world of scent. He wasn't certain he could find the words. Erudition had never been his strong point. "He doesn't smell evil…just…strange."

A flash of red and a rush of air at his side alerted him that Reynard had joined the discussion with a dexterous leap onto the adjoining fence rail. "Lightning," explained the fox, his ears perked with interest and his fluffy tail curling about his black legs. "He smells like lightning." Badger nodded his agreement and Reynard glanced at the blue box over his shoulder. "Or more accurately, he smells like the calm before the storm. The rush of heavy dark clouds over open countryside, dragging torrents in their wake. Over-warm wind sliding through field grasses." Reynard's eyes narrowed as he looked back at their human companion. "Green sky that tastes of hail and cyclones."

Rose Red seemed to consider that for a moment. Placing hands upon her hips, she said, "Well, that decides it. Reynard, you're going with the Fables traveling in the box thing." Reynard's eyes widened, showing the tiniest glimpse of white. "The animals trust you, especially the ones you helped escape from the Homelands. They'll need someone they know they can look up too, someone who can speak for them and speak well." She looked up to where a rhinoceros was now attempting to squeeze through the relatively tiny doorway of the box, scooted helpfully from behind by a pair of winged macaques who had locked hands above his hocks. The man in the suit stood by helplessly, looking appalled.

A soft night wind stirred her bangs, blowing them into her face. She raised a hand to clear her hair out of her eyes. Red strands slid between white fingers. "You can trust Donna," she commented dreamily, "She's a good sort. I'll tell you, it's not the scariest thing I've ever done, riding in that box…TARDIS…whatever they called it." She returned her gaze to her two attentive listeners, "But it's up there."

Badger blinked up at her in confusion. "It's a box," he said, pointing out the obvious, "I don't see how you're supposed to ride in it anywhere."

"Don't be a fool," countered Reynard with a self-important sniff, "I'll assume you didn't take the time to scent around its base. It smells like the lightning man. It's magic for certain. It probably flies or something else amazing."

He stared crossly at the fox before returning his attentions to Rose Red. "Are they from the thirteenth floor then? Magic users?"

She shook her head, closing her eyes as if in pain. "No, they're…" Rose sighed heavily, "Look, it's a long story. And we've got a long drive ahead of us tonight. I'll tell you then, okay?" Her eyes opened and looked hopefully into his own.

"Of course, boss," he grunted in reply. Then, throwing a meaningful look at Reynard, cocked his long head over his shoulder at the blue box behind them. The fox nodded, made a courtly bow towards Rose which earned him a smirk and an eye roll, and leapt from the fence to the well tilled field beneath. Badger watched as the lithe red form seemed to slither over the ground towards the light pouring out from the open door. For a moment, his body appeared in profile before it. A black shadow with pointed nose and perked ears frozen against the bright yellow background of the door frame. Then, quick as thought, he slipped inside to…to…goodness knew what.

"Miss Rose," Badger found himself whispering, "Whatever is in there?"

"I think the better question would be, what's not in there," she groused.

He turned to face her in confusion. "Miss Rose?" he asked, a hint of worry in his voice. She was not looking at him, but rather was staring over his head at the box and the two odd persons flanking its entranceway.

"Forget it, Stinky," she said, lowering her eyes. Her lips were pulled inwards in a strange sort of smile that showed very little of her rosy hued lips. It stretched out her cheeks and made her appear more serious. Older. Less carefree. "There's just some mysteries in this world even we're not meant to know."

As quickly as it came, the worry slipped from her face like water swirling down a bath drain. She tipped her head thoughtfully to one side and asked, "Does Mary know how to drive stick?"

"I think so," he said, his nose wrinkling. "But there's no way I'm riding with that wool-for-brains lamb of hers."


	15. Chapter 15

It comes as no great surprise that his dove is good with children.

She kneels patiently as each, lead by their nursemaids, goes through the formal motions of greeting. There is bowing, and obeisance in return. There are soft words, and tentative looks, and she smiles hugely at each, her eyes soft as a camel's. She repeats their names as they are told to her, making an effort to remember each and every one. She introduces herself as Rose, no family name, and he approves. She exists in a limbo of paternity while she is in his bridal chamber.

When all is said and done and they are released from their minders, they rush to surround her on the carpet. Many reach out tiny fingers to touch her alabaster skin, her goldenrod hair. One, a little girl with her thumb firmly ensconced in her mouth, stares long and hard into his dove's brown eyes, before climbing into her lap. She exclaims over the girls' hair styles and jewelry, and that sets the boys to competition. One insists on showing her the brave scrape on his knee from where his pony dumped him into the dust. Another brings out the fierce little curved knife he carries with him everywhere, and shows her how sharp it is by plying it against one of his own hairs.

Eventually, he claps to gather their attention and a dozen sets of black eyes swivel in his direction. "Perhaps now, dove," he says with a smile, "You might like to begin your tale?"

A wisp of worry flits across her face, and her eyes darken perceptibly. "My Lord, my stories are not always made for children."

"How so?" he asks.

She glances around at the young boys and girls surrounding her, most kneeling and sitting back upon their heels as she does, some sitting cross-legged and holding on to bare knees, the one girl still curled in her lap. "They may be frightening to ones so young."

He thinks on that for a second. "True," he admits. Then, smiling, "But children's bedtimes stories are often some of the darkest there are."

She tips her head in surprise and shifts the tiny form at her waist to a more comfortable position. "How so?"

"Have you heard the tale, my dove, of the girl in the red cloak and the wolf? It is a famous fiction." Her mouth opens slightly, and he can see the white line of her upper teeth behind her luscious lips. She nods, still watching him with great curiosity. "Then you know how the tale ends," he states. "With the child and her grandmother devoured by the beast. It is through stories that we teach the young that the world is a dangerous place. To go out into the woods alone is a great risk." He does not speak of the more hidden meaning behind the tale. That young girls eventually become women, and that such youthful changes turn the men around them into beast. Instead he says, "The story teaches us to beware of the unknown. Of those who hide their true natures. Of evil dressed up as love."

She moistens her lips with the tip of her tongue. "In my version of the story there's a huntsman who cuts the wolf open and saves the girl and her grandmother." The children have begun to arrange themselves around her. Each watches him intently, but they hover next to her like months near a flame, the closest pressing themselves up against her sides. "Then he fills the wolf up with rocks and sews the wound shut. He tosses the wolf's body in the river and everybody lives."

"Not the wolf," he points out.

"Oh!" The word comes out high and musical with her surprise. "I…I never thought of that. The story doesn't say the wolf was killed just…well, I don't suppose anything could have survived what happened to him, could it?"

She's asking him? "You'd be surprised," he comments. "Some enemies are particularly resilient."

She is no longer looking at him. She stares at the small free space of carpet directly before her knees. Her hands play absentmindedly in his daughter's curly locks. "I feel sort of bad for the wolf. It was in his nature to go after the girl, what with being a predator and all. She shouldn't have been so stupid to go wandering off on her own like that. And really, like anyone can't tell their own grandmother from a wolf, it's almost as though she were asking for it." She shakes her head and her eyes return to his. "Is that strange? Me feeling bad for the wolf?"

He smiles down at her, at his many children. "No, my dove, I would say it was perfectly in line with your character." She looks confused at that, as if she is uncertain whether or not he has paid her a compliment. "I would like you to start your tale now, frightening though it may be." Two dozen eyes turn their full, enraptured attention upon her.

"Yes, my Lord," she says with a slight bow of her head, and she begins. "It is prescient of you, my Lord, to have chosen a story about a grandmother with an unfamiliar face to make your point, for just such a woman figures into my story."

The Djinn and Rose arrive in what his dove refers to as the 50's…which of course makes little sense to him and absolutely zero sense to the children who have not been following the tale thus far. Much like their father, the children have no compunctions about breaking in with questions. She is forced to explain, as briefly as she can, about her world and about time travel. Apparently, skirts adorned with fluffy white dogs and poofy hairstyles are also involved.

She also finds herself explaining about the person known as Elvis, who is apparently a singer of some note in her land, and whom the Djinn and Rose had intended to see in concert. This, of course, results in persistent begging from the children that she recite some of the performer's well known songs. After a little prodding, she does, proving that she had not lied about her ability to carry a tune. She sings quietly to cover her embarrassment, and likely an octave too high for any male performer who was not a eunuch. The song is not translated, she has not quite reached that level of linguistic advancement, but after she is done he explains the gist to his children. It had been about a dog. A most disobedient dog, from what he can tell, with a propensity to whine. He comments that the subject matter seems a bit simplistic and she replies that the man was known as much for his looks and provocative dancing as his songs.

He asks her to demonstrate and she, even more embarrassed than before, shifts the young girl from her lap into that of one of her older sisters before standing unsteadily in front of them all. Her next movements have them all nearly collapsing with laughter. Her hips roll like a belly-dancer's, but without the skill of one trained to the act. Coloring at their amusement, but growing used to the game, she starts in on her song again. Raising her hands in the air, she allows her head to loll with the music. It is….entrancing. He can see how the movements match to the music, as if she has allowed the song to take over her body. It is exciting and wanton in its performance.

He is not entirely sure his young daughters should be watching this. It could give them…ideas.

When everyone has had a good laugh at his poor dove's expense, she sits back down, her cheeks flushed red with emotion and her exertions. The littlest one crawls back over to her lap without invitation. Her tale continues without interruption. The Djinn and Rose are, unsurprisingly, in the wrong place and time. There is, even less surprisingly, something fishy going on. Not to mention the coronation of a _queen_. Yes, his pearls really should not be exposed to such revolutionary talk; but then it is too late to change his mind now, especially after his insistence that his dove go on with the tale. Regardless, it is just a story. If anything, it is his dove's comments on the family Rose and the Djinn interview which makes him truly question his decision to invite his family on this, of all nights. There is a man and his wife and their young son. The son is rebellious, which is understandable…he is at that age. But the wife is rebellious, too, which is just unacceptable. Mind, her husband appears to be a buffoon, but that is another matter entirely.

The story turns dark soon afterwards. The grandmother his dove alluded to is little more than a disembodied thump above the heads of the unhappy family, but somehow her physical absence makes her audible appearances all the more disturbing. The children sit enraptured as his dove tells of going to investigate the maker of the 'magic picture boxes', their eyes so wide that slivers of white glow around their edges. Most lay upon their stomachs, heads propped up by elbows and bare feet waving in the air. When she tells of being sucked into one of the boxes, several of the young girls whimper and hide their faces in each other's robes. Luckily, the babe on her lap is already asleep.

The rest of the story is told from the Djinn's point of view, and necessarily second hand. When the mysterious man comes across the faceless Rose, those children who have not succumbed to the draw of sleep audibly gasp. "It made the Djinn mad," she relates, "To see his friend treated so poorly. Whoever was plaguing the people had ripped her face off, had taken away everything that made her who she was, and dropped her off in the middle of the street like a piece of refuse. The Djinn told the officer that now things were very simple. That now, there was no power on Earth that would stop him."

"What did he mean?" asks Ali, the eldest of the group and therefore its _de facto_ leader. "Why was it simple?"

"I…well…" He sees she is struggling with this, and thinks, perhaps, that she does not know either. Or more likely, does not believe the obvious answer. He decides to help her out.

"Ali," he says, addressing his son in a lecturing tone. The boy turns to him with a start, as if having forgotten his father was even in the room. "His woman had been taken from him and injured. There is nothing that brings a man to rage more quickly than a threat to his own. No more righteous anger. You will understand someday when you take a wife and have daughters of your own."

His son is looking at him as though he holds the key to the heavens in his hand. His dove, too, is observing him curiously. There is a disconcerted look on her features, and he wonders if he has given her pause by referring to Rose as the Djinn's 'woman'. She shakes her head, as if to clear it, and goes on.

By the time Rose's face is returned and she and the Djinn are reunited, all the children are fast asleep. Sitting cross legged in their midst, she looks like some heathen idol surrounded by exhausted worshippers. Her robes are damp from where the little girl has drooled upon them in her slumber. Her voice is dry and cracks every few lines. She has done more talking tonight than is usual, and singing as well. Too, they have not had the comfort of their customary tea to wet parched throats. She smiles at him though, over the supine bodies of his children. Smiles with a warmth he has rarely seen directed at himself. Warmth and understanding, and how many different smiles does this woman have secreted in her repertoire. One could spend a lifetime and not examine every one. Several lifetimes. It is an almost motherly look, and he thinks he would like to see her wear it again. That he would like to see it flashed over the sleeping forms of her own children. He smiles back. Yes, she would make an excellent mother…someday.

She nods her chin at Ali and asks, "Is he to be the future sultan, then, my Lord?"

He snorts in derision. "I certainly hope not."

Her eyes go instantly wide. "Why not?" she asks, and he cannot understand why she is so indignant.

"Dove even if he did not have four elder brothers, and six sisters," he adds the last quickly, knowing she will press for the answer if he does not, "He is but a child of the harem. He is no son of a sultan's wife."

"But," and now she is clearly indignant. Her voice remains the same volume, but its pitch has increased significantly. He feels she is only keeping control of her outburst so as not to wake the children. "But, he's your son!"

"Yes," he replies, a soft smile lighting his face as he allows his eyes to roam with pride and affection over the prostrate figures on the rug. "They are all my children, and I care for each in turn, but none is my heir."

"And…and what about their mothers?" He can tell she is gritting her teeth behind her primly closed lips.

"They are courtesans. Mistresses. Women of pleasure. They are not," he said gazing pointedly at her, "My spouse."

"So they're just nothing to you?!" She is shouting now, but in a whisper. It is a strange combination, given her accent, and he has some difficulty catching her words. "Just…just trash. Something you leave in the street after you've had your fun and sucked it dry of life. Faceless women without minds, without souls!"

"No!" he says, and in his vehemence, he is unable to keep his voice level. The babe in his dove's arms stirs to wakefulness at his half shout and rubs drowsily at her eyes. Others to have come awake at his cry. Some look at his little dove, her face a mask of cold fury, but most turn their attentions upon him, with tiny, scared expressions. "No," he repeats with more moderation, "That is not how I feel." The children are all awake now, crowding around his dove as if trying to disappear into her shadow. "I care for them, as I care for all my children, but my dove, harem slaves cannot be considered the equal of the sultan, it is an impossibility. They are not proper thinking creatures, not like-" he cuts himself off, suddenly aware of what he had been about to admit. Not equals...not like her. He finds himself at a loss for further words.

She glances around at his young sons and daughters, biting at her lower lip. Then, for the first time in weeks, she speaks to him in her own language. A speech the young ones, of course, will not understand. Her voice is cold, calculating. "Perhaps my Lord would not have such trouble keeping wives if he treated women as more than mere property."

He should kill her.

He is more than within his rights.

She has presumed to correct him in his own household.

She has brought up that which is not to be spoken of in his presence, and he knows for certain then, that she knows. His dove has heard about his past travails, about the wickedness of his first wife. She who was as beautiful as a poet's words made flesh, and as treacherous as a viper. She who had gambled with his love, his kindness, his _mercy_…and lost. It had been she who opened his eyes to the evil which is inherent in the female breast. There is no trusting their sex. There is no shred of honor among them. Their declarations of love are nothing but false protestations. Their promises of faithfulness nothing more than chaff blown before the storm.

And yet…

He thinks of great stories of adventure. Of war and love and powerful enchantment. Thinks of the wily Ulysses, and his vessel of loyal followers. All fell by the wayside, all proved unworthy in the end. Left to continue his lonely quest, he had held close the one thing he believed in; the one thing worth believing in. He thinks of the faithful Penelope; no face to launch a thousand ships, but a heart to ensure the return of just one. Thinks of monsters and magic, of long nights of travel and temptations to just let it all go. Thinks of time, five and a half hours or ten years worth; and one sad woman bent diligently to her weaving every morning, and stripping it strand by strand to pieces every night. Thinks of silken threads and rose petals, of eyes brimming with tears and shining in the light from a moonlit casement, of sailing ships and magic boxes and a faith that as long as love abides, so shall they. And he thinks, perhaps for the first time in his life, that maybe…just maybe…_he could be wrong_.

The children stare up at him with frightened eyes. What he does to her…whatever he chooses…will not be done in their sight. He claps twice sharply, and nurses in long skirts totter sleepily to their feet from where they huddled in obedience near the doorway. The children are prodded to full wakefulness, or else hoisted onto firm shoulders. The women hurry to the exits. Throughout, his dove's gaze never wanders from his own. Her eyes burn...burn like watch-fires on distant dunes. She does not back down. The infuriating woman will not back down! She should lower her eyes, beg for forgiveness for speaking to him thusly. She should abase herself, knowing that he holds her life in his hands.

He knows she will not. It is not in her character, and she has faced death many times before this. Faced horrors he cannot quite imagine, and refused to blink.

When the room is again empty save the two of them and their silent attendants, he stands. Moving next to her, he towers menacingly over her kneeling form. She follows his movements, amber eyes still locked with his own. It is he who is first to break the silence, and he feels that in doing so he has lost some undisclosed and undefined war of attrition. "I have killed men for less," he says simply.

"When men and women are property, it is easy to dispose of them."

His fists clench painfully, and then release. He closes his eyes, and feels her disapproval wash over him like a warm summer wind. He does not kick or cuff her. He does not call for his guards or grab her hair to drag her to his bedchamber. He does not rail at her, or spit upon her upturned face. He does none of these things, and he knows not why. What has she done to him, this shining temptress from another world? What has she made of him? Does even she know?

"Your story," he finally manages to grind out, "It is nearly done, no?"

"It winds towards its finish, my Lord." There is no trace of condescension in her address.

"Finish it quickly, dove," he says, turning sharply away, and stalking off towards his rooms. "Before I grow tired of this amusement."


	16. Chapter 16

"Are you crazy?! You can't let him go out there like that?"

"Can and will," grunted the man in the long white coat as he deftly wound another length of bandage around Boy Blue's clasped hands. A long two edged sword emerged from between them, with the ornate pommel of a large golden grip sticking out the bottom. "I don't know who you are missy, but I know who I am. I'm a battlefield doctor, and I say this soldier is fit for battle…a little bruised, mind," he pulled tight on the wrappings then broke one end off with a sharp jerk of his wrist, causing Blue to flinch visibly, "But serviceable."

"Besides," he said, grasping blindly behind himself for a roll of adhesive tape, "I've already had the Deputy Mayor on my case and if I didn't stop for her…" What remained was lost in the muffle when he took a stretch of the tape between his teeth and tore it off.

"It's okay, Donna," said Blue, smiling disingenuously from behind a mask of band-aids. "I asked him to do it. Fabletown needs me."

"Like hell it does!" she protested.

Blue only shook his head. "You don't understand." He nodded to the long weapon now firmly affixed before him. "This is the vorpal sword."

Donna's fists ensconced themselves on her hips and one red eyebrow arched with the same silent threat that always seemed to work on the Doctor. "And that's supposed to mean something to me, is it?"

"It can cut through anything," he explained. The attending doctor, after a final critical look at his handiwork, patted the young man on the shoulder and strode off. Blue took two wide swipes at the air with his great steel appendage, staying carefully away from Donna. "Snicker," he said as the blade swooshed up past his left shoulder. "Snack," he added as he swung the sword over his head and down again on his right side. He paused, his chest heaving, but with the sword not trembling a bit in his hurt hands. "It's one of our most powerful weapons…and I'm the only one who knows how to use it." He looked up at her with wide blue eyes and she could think only that he was so young. Yes, he was hundreds of years old, but still, he was just a boy. He'd always be a boy. As long as he stayed alive, that was.

"Madness," she despaired, "You've all gone flippin' mad."

"That's war," he said, as if that explained everything. Perhaps it did.

Donna shook her head as he walked away, letting her eyes roam over the vast store room full of magical treasures which was being rapidly converted into a medical ward to deal with expected casualties. Se tried to locate the distinctive profile of Rose Red. The two of them had seemed friendly, more than friendly actually, if the glances Rose had been throwing the young man's way were any indication. Hopefully, she might be able to knock some sense into the idiot.

One wall of the chamber was lined with people, great and small - and not a few anthropomorphic beasts - each with a sharp tipped sword in their hands. The blades seemed flimsy and thin. Donna didn't think they'd stand up to any sort of harsh treatment. The metal circles protecting their bearers' hands seemed impossibly small. Each fighter wore a white coat that zipped up the back like a straight-jacket. They stood with one foot of hoof placed in front of the other, with their weight balanced surely between the two. Before them was a pretty girl with a blonde ponytail, dressed in the same uniform white coat over tight breeches that perfectly displayed the taut muscles of her legs. She held a mesh mask under one arm and gripped one of the delicate swords in the other, point down and balanced rakishly on the toe of one stylish, knee-high, polished leather boot.

"Advance!" she called out in a voice that seemed overlarge for her stature. The line of swordsmen moved as a group towards her. "Advance!" she repeated, and the line moved again. "Retreat, advance, lunge!" she added in rapid succession as the line rushed to obey her commands. Each finished their movement with a sharp stab forward of the prickly points on their weapons followed by a thrust that utilized their entire bodies' force of motion. Each ended the maneuver considerably closer to the ground, their front legs bent at ninety degree angles to the ground and their hind legs stretched out behind them in straight lines, trembling with the effort of hard held muscles. "Recover," the girl continued thoughtfully. As the fencers returned to their readied stances the blonde woman strode towards them with consideration. Each seemed to be waiting for something, primed to move at instant; and each was ready when she ultimately screamed, "Fleche!"

A wall of sharp metal tips came flying at the girl and Donna, quite a few jumps away though she was, swayed nervously away from the onslaught. The attackers seemed to soar as one, throwing themselves at the air as if they could see the invisible enemies before them. Several shouted wordless battle cries that echoed off the high ceiling of the room. The blonde girl never flinched. She failed even to blink as one young man in army fatigues under his protective jacket passed on her right and a satyr wearing not much at all slipped by on her left, the deadly points of their weapons coming within mere inches of grazing her sides.

Once past the point of her shoulders, the group stopped and reversed its motion, automatically returning to the wall and never once turning their backs upon their imaginary foes. Each returned to his guard, looking perfectly ready and willing to charge again at a moment's notice. "You'll do," the girl said softly, nodding to herself with approval before raising her voice once again, "Let's see the sabers next!"

Donna continued with her search, keeping a wary eye on the exiting group of sword bearers. As a result, she nearly tripped over three pigs that ran squealing across her path, submachine guns strapped to their backs. Before she could raise her jaw back into its regular place, she was treated to yet another surreal scene. Following ponderously behind the pigs was a large tortoise, with modern weaponry similarly affixed to its shell, and with a large rabbit sitting in a cockpit seat on its back, its upper half draped sleepily over the shotgun barrel.

Catching her steps and backing towards the office door, Donna pondered about just how much weirdness she would have to be exposed to in her life before she stopped being fazed by things like this. A loud laugh drew her attention to the hallway outside. The Prince went running by, his face flushed with excitement and his starched, white shirt pulled loose from his trousers and flapping with the wind of his passage. Behind him, a giant, hairy, horned monster in a ripped black t-shirt and green khaki shorts followed with a grim look on his face. The Prince took the time to flash a suggestive smile at Donna as he passed. The beast merely nodded politely. Donna shook her head and returned her attention to the medical station. It was then she saw a familiar redhead weaving her way towards Donna through rows of military style cots.

"Rose," she shouted and waved.

Rose jogged over. "Hey," she said smiling, "Been looking for you."

"And I've been looking for you," Donna asserted in reply. "Do you know that Boy Blue's going to try and join in the fight?! With his hands the way they are?!! That Dr. Swineheart or whoever he says he is had to basically tie his sword onto him!!"

Rose looked troubled. "No," she said, "I didn't know. But it's his choice. Boy Blue is one of the best fighters we have. He was one of the defenders of the keep at the end of the world. They're all heroes."

"Someone has to talk some sense to him," Donna insisted, "Make him see he's signing his own death warrant."

"If we lose, it's all of our death warrants," Rose added quietly, and Donna could see that this particular argument wasn't going to get either of them anywhere.

"So why were you looking for me?" Donna asked, changing the subject. No one had seemed even vaguely interested in her since she and the Doctor had come back, unloaded their various charges into the front gardens and parked the TARDIS off in one corner of the business office behind a giant metal gauntlet.

"Snow wants you." Rose tipped her head to one side and her hair bounced off of one shoulder. "She's making a speech and she wants you there to help rally the troops."

"What?" Donna blinked and pulled her head back in shock. "B-but why?" she stuttered. "No one here even knows who I am."

"The farm Fables do," Rose explained, straightening, "Especially the ones who took a whirl in that little blue box of yours."

Donna shook her head. "Not mine. The TARDIS is the Doc-"

"Doesn't matter," Rose interrupted. "You're a good person, I saw that first thing when I met you. The farm Fables sense it too, and they've got a bunch more senses than I do. The Doctor makes them nervous. There's just some characters they can't be convinced to trust. Bigby for one, he's not allowed on the Farm at all, and I've had more than one individual come to me with nervous concerns about your friend. No, you, Donna, are an inspiration. A magic wielder with a modest manner and a good heart, something they're not really used to. Seeing you next to the Fabletown's leadership will give them confidence." She smiled crookedly, angling her face coyly,

"I…" Donna didn't know just what to say in response to that. "I don't….thanks?" Rose just smiled knowingly in return.

And that was how Donna Noble found herself standing behind a half circle of parked cars, and listened as Snow gave an address to her people, encouraging them to go to war. She tried her best to look 'inspiring', but had no idea exactly how to go about it. Beside her stood the skinny blonde thing in the fencing get-up, polishing her sword. Mayor Cole was there too, looking proud and determined in a military jacket laden with medals. Fly looked uncomfortable, with an uzi balanced against his hip. The unpleasant Fable doctor stood with a straight back and arms folded behind him. Donna wondered briefly where the real Doctor had gotten to in all this mess. Snow crawled with some difficulty onto the hood of one of the cars parked in a defensive semi-circle around the gate to the woodlands. The Prince came up close to the car behind her, one hand reached forward, as if in concern that she might fall. He needn't have worried. If there was a model of grace under pressure that day, it was Snow White.

"I'm no military commander," the dark haired beauty announced from her improvised platform. "I've no special wisdom to impart, except that which others have said so many times before." She bent her head, as if a great weight had suddenly fallen upon her shoulders, and turned her gaze to where her knuckles have gone paper white against the handle of her cane. "We don't have any particular country to defend. Ours were lost to us long ago. And we've no flag to fight for. Fabletown has no formal status except as it exists in our minds and hearts." Her head raises in defiance, "No, when we fight tonight, if we do it will only be for each other – for those standing here beside us."

Donna allowed her gaze to roam out over the crowd of people and animals and…whatevers…filling the street before the intrepid former queen. She saw some familiar faces. Rose Red, with a comforting hand against the chest of the large man she called Weyland. Boy Blue, his overlarge sword drooping in his hands and his bandage covered face grim. The sweet female bear in the pink frock who had cried quietly in the blue-green light of the TARDIS main control room, and whisperingly confessed her fears for her small ursine family. Tall and short, fat and thin, animal and vegetable and mineral, they stood together. Equals. Friends. United in the common cause of protecting the only things left from the homes they had left so long before. She had to wonder at this hardscrabble community of misfits.

"Cheer up though," Snow added more brightly, "Once the bad guys see the strength of our fortifications, defenses and, most important, our _resolve_, they'll probably just turn tail and run." There we no cheers as she clambered awkwardly down from her perch. Rather the crowd seemed to have taken on her patented icy seriousness. They wandered off to their various duties, heads high, but faces worried.

Donna couldn't help but look to the pale faced woman with admiration. "You really believe that?" she asked, as Snow leaned heavily upon her cane and caught her breath.

"Which part," Snow spat out, "The part where I told them all we have to fight for is each other or the part where I tried to convince them the enemy would run away?"

"Ummm…both." Donna suddenly felt very awkward.

"Yes," Snow sighed, lifting her eyes to the heavens. "And no. There's no way the forces of the Adversary will back down now. Not when they know how exposed we are, how little of our strength is concentrated here." She shook her head, squinting her eyes closed. "This country, we've always stayed out of its little wars, refused to back any faction. We never raised a finger to protect it. And now we're going to do battle with a magical enemy in the midst of its greatest city, and not a single resident can know a thing about it. No, there's nothing here in this land for us. We don't belong here. None of us do. We're all late and unwilling immigrants to this place. Aliens."

She turns ice blue eyes on Donna, "And it's that bond of being different, that connection between each and every one of us, that is the one and only thing which could possibly save us now."

Out of the corner of her eye, Donna caught a flash of dark blue. Turning, she saw the crowd part to reveal the lanky form of the Doctor leaned negligently against an old fashioned lamp-post. He seemed deep in thought, as if considering Snow's words from her speech. His thick rimmed glasses slid low upon the crest of his nose. His eyes were like dark storm clouds gathering on the horizon.

Without knowing why, Donna felt herself shiver.


	17. Chapter 17

Tonight, they walk in the gardens.

It has become one of his favorite ways to pass the evening hours, this walking; enjoying the cool of the night rising from the dew damp ground around the flower beds and washing away the oppressive heat of the day. It is springtime again. The freshly turned dirt is alive with buds poking their way through to the surface and, in some cases, opening tentative buds. It is not the full fledged beauty of the night blooming summer court, but it is an appreciable change from the claustrophobic compression even his vast apartments seem, on occasion, to inspire.

The moonlight makes her pensive…dreamy, and he knows her well enough to know it is not just a trick of the light. Her memories come out like the stars, shine their little while in peace, and retreat with the morning's rays. In the darkness before dawn and the path between the rhododendron bushes, she glows like an orange blossom fallen amongst the pebbles. Mistress of his evenings, she puts lie to the claim that the morning star is the most beautiful object in the heavens; worthy of association with the goddess of love. He has thought it before, but it is worth repeating; the Ionians are fools.

"I do not want to say it was the Devil," she explains, her voice heavy, as though wading through thick mud. It is a philosophical argument, and he has come to expect such things from her by now…to tolerate, on her behalf, ideas and concepts his courtiers would never dream to whisper in his presence. "Though that was what it claimed."

"What did it look like?" he asks conversationally.

"I do not know my Lord, for Rose never saw him. She only heard him speak through the Ood slaves, but the Djinn said-"

"Let us delay what the Djinn said until he says it." He smiles, and she drops her eyes in dutiful acknowledgement.

"The Djinn asked the…the Creature what religion it was supposed to be from and it said it was the Beast of all religions. That he was the basis of all tales of original evil."

She gives him a moment to think on that point and he takes it. He knows not all beliefs have a Devil, at least not in name. But that does not mean this Creature was not the progenitor of all those creeds that do embody sin in a single demonic individual. Too, the Creature's words have a familiar ring to them. Before the troubled times, when travel between the worlds had been more common, such things were known, though spoken of only in whisper. Literals, they were called. People and things and concepts which were the ultimate representatives of all others of the same type. The Ionians might call them Platonic forms. Like the rose. Not a rose from his garden, or the Rose from his dove's tale, but _the_ rose. A single flawless bloom replicated a billion times in imperfect copy. The rose as an ideal, rather than an item. There was no way to tell if this Creature was not one of them, the physical personification of evil. Perhaps its conversations with the Djinn would bring light to the subject.

"The Creature went on to say that the forces of good had chained him in the pit before the creation of the universe. The Djinn scoffed at this, saying it was impossible; nothing could exist before time."

"Why?" he breaks in without intending to, voicing his thoughts without edit. "Because it does not fit with his storied theory of the Great Explosion? His explanation of how at the beginning of time everything in existence was compacted into a mass smaller than my fist? My dove, I mean no disrespect to the Djinn, but I begin to question his calculations. The story this Creature tells cannot be any less farfetched then his dry system of physics and natural order." He sees a tightness in the skin around her eyes and realizes he has vexed her with his sharp criticism. In an attempt to soften his prior words he asks, in a lighter tone, "For, was the Djinn not himself stationed upon an 'impossible planet' while these discussions were ensuing? It seems an odd place to be arguing what can and cannot be, hmmm?" He smiles and behind her veil, the corner of her mouth turns up and she looks away.

"It is true my Lord, for the Creature seemed capable of much which the Djinn would not ascribe to possibility. He next spoke in turn to each of the people on the planet and the metal ship, speaking to them of things only they knew." She turns back to face him, one well sculpted eyebrow peaked above a rich mahogany eye.

"What things?" he prods, unable to keep his voice a disinterested drone.

"For instance, my Lord," and he hears her particular foreign drawl enter her voice; the dry, sarcastic tone. "He knew that Toby, the man who studied ancient cultures, was…untouched by a woman." She does not meet his eyes while relating this, and he feels his own cheeks flare in response.

"What did," his voice comes out strange and too high, and he clears his throat before going on. "What did it say to the Djinn?"

She is smiling secretively, her face angled away and eyes downcast. He thinks she knows she has made him uncomfortable, thinks that she may just be proud of the fact. "It called him the 'killer of his kind'," she states, her amusement clear in her voice.

"Another nightmare name for your hero," he grumbles, unsure whether he is angry with the Djinn for being so terrifying or with his dove for making him feel as skittish as a nervous horse. Or with himself. "Let us not speak of it again." She nods her understanding and abruptly stops. Stooping to one knee, she reaches out a pale hand to where a small, pink bloom peaks through a low cloud of green foliage. She does not touch the flower, merely cups her hand around the petals, and the color of the blossom deepens in the slight shade her palm creates. Returning her hand to her robes she rises gracefully from her knee and looks at him. "And what did he say to Rose, this Creature?" he asks, more than a little afraid of what his dove might tell him.

"The Creature said she was the…brave child," she shakes her head, "No that is not exactly the phrase. What is brave, but more so, and on behalf of others as opposed to one's self? Bravery with noble purpose."

He thinks. "Like a soldier?"

"No," she replies, visibly vexed by her now quite rare failure to capture her entire meaning in his language. "Never that. Like…well, a hero that saves a maiden in a fairy tale." Her look is puzzled, as if she is not sure herself of the concept she is trying to embody.

"Like the Djinn?" he says, restarting their walk along the path.

She smiles sadly. "Yes, but not quite so selfless." He holds himself back from making a nasty comment on the Djinn's supposed selflessness. "And this would have to be a heroine, I suppose…fighting to save some young man." She laughs lightly, the babble of a small stream over too large rocks. "Is there a word for that in your tongue, my Lord?"

He looks at her. "Valiant," he says quietly, thinking of fools who die for love and honor. "It is a concept tied to chivalry, of which the Invaders, the followers of the dying god who once threatened our lands, spoke with such conviction."

"Valiant," she repeats, and nods her concentration. "The Creature called Rose the Valiant Child and said that she would die in battle very soon."

"It gave prophesy?!" He finds his words rush out of him ahead of his intentions again. How her tale does engross him! "The Creature, it foretold of Rose's demise." She agrees silently and, looking at her fine and lively form, he cannot help but add, "A poor oracle indeed, then."

"Actually, it was right, after a fashion," she abjures teasingly, "But that story must wait for another night." Her cheeks round in a grin above her veil, and he can imagine her tongue poking out between her teeth, unseen behind its not quite sheer substance.

Her tale progresses with the shift of the moon across the sky, and as the great orb descends to earth, so does the Djinn make his journey into the depths of the dark cavern to seek out the lair of the Creature, and perhaps retrieve his missing Box. Now she tells him what the Djinn had said of the Creature, of its appearance and actions. It certainly sounds like what he imagines the Devil to be. He notes that she glosses over her own part; her escapes from her pursuers, her refusal to leave without the Djinn, her attack and betrayal by her companions. She waves such things away as unimportant, despite her claims that this is _her_ story. Eventually, she pauses for breath. It ghosts out of her in a cloud and he realizes that it is cold. She does not seem chilled, and his own robes are sufficiently thick to shut out the spring chill, but still, his dove is not one to complain. He thinks to ask her if she is uncomfortable, decides that she is enough her own master to mention such things on her own if they are a concern.

"It is said," he muses instead, "That in every great epic there must at some time be a descent into the underworld."

"My Lord speaks of great epics," she murmurs, "In the same breath as my tale. Truly, I am honored, but my story is but a humble telling and deserves not such praise."

"Nonsense," he denies, but without heat, "My dove, your story is quite as good as any of the tales Ionian poets have recited at length in my presence, or the verses of captured brehons from the far lands to the north - those who teach the lore of their people in mighty song. But your story, my dove, is not some oft repeated anecdote of time out of legend. No, it is a recent occurrence, and clearly still fresh in your mind. It has had no chance of faulty interpretation, and thus comes to us in its original and untainted form. I fear even our own tales, over their centuries of repetition and suffering through various translations and suspect publications, must necessarily undergo a certain transformation to inaccuracy, whereas your words, my dear, are nothing but the plainest truth. And that, in itself, makes yours the greatest epic I have yet heard tell."

Her cheeks may color at his praise, but he does not see it, for she turns her head demurely aside to hide her reaction. Charmed as always by her good manners, he is encouraged to offer her yet further praise. He urges her again along the path, his hand placed delicately between the points of her shoulders to direct her with care.

"Dove, I would compare your masterpiece with that of the voyage of the great trickster-warrior Ulysses, whom the Ionians hold in such high esteem. I have oft marked a certain likeness between that king of old and the Djinn. Though neither would shy from combat when such was necessary, the heroes of both narratives prefer to outwit their opponents. Too, both seem subject to a tireless wanderlust which causes them to always be on the move. To seek out new shores, new challenges. And both, it now appears, spent time in Hell."

He is about to continue his speech, having thought in the interim of yet more interesting comparisons, but he is interrupted. Her reply is huffed from her lungs with no little restraint upon its tone. It makes the sweet music of her pleasingly accented Arabic sound harsh and unmodulated. "I am sorry, my Lord, but I do not believe in it. Not Hell, not the Devil; and I certainly do not believe that…that thing on the impossible planet was anything of the kind. No," she shakes her head with a determined finality. "No, the Djinn did not believe it and neither do I."

This tirade is enough to bring him up short, the silk of his loose pantaloons floating around him like willow limbs in a summer breeze before falling to rest. He is used to her questioning, used to her challenging, and by now, used to his inevitable response. "Not believe in the Devil?" he questions, truly surprised. "But my dove, you have seen evil face to face. How can you say you doubt its source?"

She had continued on a step beyond him, not noticing his arrested motion until accidentally breaking protocol along with the undrawn line at his shoulder that is not to be passed by accompanying inferiors. With an air of embarrassment, and not a little trepidation, she turns back to face him. "My Lord, I am sorry," she begins apologizing immediately. He cuts her off with a sharp wave of his hand, letting her know it is nothing and that he would prefer to hear her answer. She swallows heavily before continuing. "My Lord…" her voice shakes only slightly, "It is true, I have seen evil. I have seen those who would commit murder for money or power; because they were afraid or to fuel some sick desire for domination…or just because they enjoy killing. I have seen people abandon children to die or starve, or to grow up without the love of their parents. I have seen people turn their backs upon those who would call them friend. I have seen people die who did not deserve to, and I have seen those who have earned no right to live walk free. I have seen war." She paused at this revelation and seemed to gather herself before making the final onslaught. "I have seen wasting sickness and terrible madness. I have seen people wish for the release of death when it would not come, and I have…." Her breath caught and her eyes closed. "I have given release when it was begged for."

Her fists are clenched in the whispery yellow-gold silk of her robes. "My Lord, I have seen all of this and more, and I have come to one conclusion. If there is a Devil, then he is in all of us. For it is people who make evil. And by people, I mean aliens, too. They do not need it created for them by some all-powerful dread Lord, for it exists in their hearts as surely as does the hot blood that feeds them. And if there is a Hell, then it is where we are. Everywhere. Anywhere. Any when. For always there is pain and suffering and hate and injustice and…" Her voice trails away.

In the moonlight, her eyes blaze, and she is no valiant child. Brave yes, his little dove, but a child…never. A woman. A powerful woman, like the Amazons of old. And she has seen war. She has seen killing and evil. She is, he thinks, for the thousandth time, not like any woman he has ever known. A notion passes through his mind like a wisp of wind through river reeds and he lets it go before it can be caught and toyed with and actually put to serious consideration. It had been something of Hippolyta, who would rather be impaled upon a spear than admit defeat. A man's honor in a woman's breast. A dove with the heart of a hunting hawk.

"This," he asks, encompassing all of the night washed garden in the wave of his hand, "This is Hell?" He means it as an honest question, not as correction, and wonders how she will take it.

"No," she says, "It's just life. Living each day, one after the next. And some days are good, like some people are good, and some are…well…bad. But there's nothing _inherently_ good or bad. Anyone can change, and everyone deserves a chance to…at least one chance." She takes a breath and her forehead creases. It is a bad habit she has all but broken now. He next words are slow, almost torturously slow, and he understands that she is trying to translate something directly from her own language. "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

"Is that your Djinn's words again?" he asks, intrigued.

"Shakespeare," the crease remains to mar her face attractively, "I think. But the Djinn used to say it…say it to Rose whenever there'd be some disgusting looking creature they had to deal with for one reason or another. And he was right. On the whole, they turned out to be pretty nice."

"And what of the Daleks?" he pushes, knowing this to be a sore point with her, and her head whips towards him in surprise. "Are they only bad because you think them so?"

She thinks. She thinks so much, his little dove. It is a wonder she does not collapse under the weight of her own consideration. "No," she says, "Not bad…just…nothing. Neutral. One hundred percent out for themselves all the time. Individually, they're just soldiers doing what they're told. Like…like honeybees…or the metal men. No independent thought, just orders."

"But is that not the essence of evil," he argues, "To place one's self above all others, above a universe of others in this case."

She shakes her head, and he is amazed she continues so stubbornly with this line of discussion. He should not be; he has known her long enough now. "That's nature. You don't question the motives of a lion when it takes over a pride and kills all the cubs. It's survival of the fittest, and the Daleks think they're the fittest species there is. They think that makes it okay for them to make war on everyone, and everything, else."

The moon is large and yellow, and it reflects in the liquid shimmer of her eyes. He tips his head to one side and the moon and stars swing in her gaze. He is not surprised in the least to see the night sky caught helpless in the spheres of her sight. "Then it is the Djinn who is wrong, for protecting your Earth from the stronger species." The light disappears from her eyes. "He is wrong to wish the Daleks dead and your people alive."

"No," she says, and her total conviction is confounding. "He doesn't wish that they were dead and gone. He wishes that they weren't so black and white. That they could listen to reason. But they can't, it's not part of their programming. And so all he can do is try to protect his own territory, like a lion pride patrolling its den; to stop them at the borders."

"And your world," he queries carefully, "That is part of his territory? His domain?"

"The universe is his domain," she answers steadily, as the moon swims again into the black background of her pupils. "And woe betide anyone who challenges the fittest creature in it."


	18. Chapter 18

"So," Donna asks, rubbing the toe of her trainer into the floor like a child about to own up to something naughty, "Are we leavin' then?"

He cocks his head at and wonders when wanderlust became catching. Usually, it's her who wants to stay…who wants to make all the long and painful goodbyes. Life's a series of goodbyes, most of which he'd like to avoid if at all possible. "What would make you think that?"

"Well," she starts, looking over the huge office, now mostly made up as a temporary hospital for the inevitable victims of the coming action, "We got Bigby on his way to Canada. Dropped Fly and Buffkin off yesterday to raid the local army supply stores. Delivered the Farm Fables to town." Her gaze turns questioning. "Haven't we done enough?"

No, he thinks, before stopping to question why. The key he answers himself, and that is not a satisfactory answer. He could go back now, slip it into the freaky Frau's knitting bag the week before and be done with it all. He'd never know where it came from originally, of course, but it wouldn't be the first time something timey-wimey and wibbley-wobbly eluded his full comprehension. "It just seems," Donna adds, persuasively, "Like you'd want to get out of here before the…umm…fur starts to fly."

She's right of course. There's no place for him in this, no place for her. Best to duck out now and wish everyone well. It's not as though they didn't try, didn't do their best, didn't give their all for the good side…assuming it was the good side. He is about to tell her this, to make the possibly unrecoverable mistake of telling Donna that she is absolutely, 100% in the right, when the Prince arrives to interrupt their conversation, a sawed off shotgun balanced confidently over one shoulder.

"So Doctor," he beams charmingly at the two of them (and really, can he beam any other way?), "Found a suitable weapon yet?"

"No thanks," he replies, shaking his head, "I don't much go in for guns."

The Prince shrugs as if it makes no difference to him, one way or the other. He hands the black barreled rifle off to a passerby and walks over to where a number of swords of different types and designs are set leaning upon their points in a specialized rack. Running his hands lovingly over the lined up pommels like a child sliding his fingers across the ivory keys of a grand piano, he stops upon one with a wide blade and an filigree guard. Gripping it firmly by the hilt, he lifts it from its place and, with a swooshing flourish, brings it to bear in front of himself. Turning, he faces the two of them and says, "How do you feel about swords?"

He doesn't answer right away and Donna's eyebrows raise significantly at his complete lack of audible response. Instead, he advances towards the Prince with his head tipped in barely concealed interest. The Prince turns the weapon about in his hands and, grabbing it carefully by the blade, holds it out, hilt first. Stopping mere inches away from the small ruby decoration imbedded at its pommel end, he looks down upon it. It's not shiny. Not frivolously appointed, despite its slight decoration. It's a functional object and he has a certain fondness for things functional. "I have," he states, his eyes tracking slowly up the blade and the Prince's arm before locking upon his face, "Been known to buckle a swash."

Donna's eyebrows leap into her hairline, counterbalanced by the simultaneous drop of her jaw to her chest. "Since when," she gasps out, when she can find breath, "Have you ever carried a sword?!"

"Since 1660," he snaps back with smug superiority. "Did a favor once for King Charles II and he presented me with the Sword of Temporal Justice." Sniffing thoughtfully, he looks away from the weapon a moment. "I gave it back. Silly, pompous looking thing, but that's Charlie for you. Absolutely zero sense of taste."

The Prince merely nods, and proffers the weapon again. "If broadsword isn't your particular style we have foils, epees, claymores…you name it."

He sees himself reach for the broadsword's grip and slide the weapon carefully from the Prince's grasp. "This should do-" he flips the blade up so that it is held vertically before him, the light reflecting off of its length in a bright flash, "-just fine."

Donna is beside him immediately, her hand clenching at his forearm, just inches away from where he holds the sword. "Doctor," she says, her voice disbelieving, "You can't really mean to do this?! To fight?! To go to war?!" She stares up into his face. He hears the desperation rise in her voice without her conscious control and it cuts him more deeply than the mortal steel in his hands ever could. "What about all that stuff you told Jenny, huh? What about violence never solving anything? Everything you said about needless death and genocide and…and...was that all just a _lie_?"

He looks down at her and it seems he is looking a long way, longer than their difference in heights should account for. Light glints off the blade and angles across her face in a bright line. She blinks and flinches away. He sounds as sad and defeated as he feels when he finally addresses her. "These people didn't start the war Donna, it came to them."

"But that doesn't make any difference now, does it?" she bellows, thrusting his arm away from her. "It's still killing…still murder!"

"Not with that sword it isn't," the Prince argues. "All our intelligence points to the enemy being primarily made of wood, and on top of that, damnably difficult to kill. You'd have to hack a good long time with that hunk of metal to do any real damage."

"Then what's even the point?!" Donna cries, now screeching like a harpy. "If you can't kill them with a sword, then why even bother using one."

"Because it's a sight more likely to slow them down than a bullet would be." The Prince's look is dark, serious; completely at odds with his regular rakish smile and devil-may-care attitude. Tom Cruisein _A Few Good Men_, as opposed to _Top Gun_; let alone _Risky Business_. "This whole plan of defense in the streets is just one massive delay tactic until we can bring in the big guns."

"And _that_ would be?" Donna's question is arch, condescending.

"Me," he answers her before the Prince can take a breath to. Both turn their attention to him; the Prince's look curious, Donna's incredulous. "No second chances," he tells her, as he's told her before. As he's told Martha. Told…well. That's just the kind of man he is. "Oh, sure," he continues, "You can say it's just New York, just this tiny little borough of ex-patriots. But it's _Earth_," he feels the gravitas in his own voice, though he's not quite sure who he's trying to convince. "And if there's one thing invaders need to know about Earth…it's that _it is defended_."

Donna's furious, of course. It's to be expected. She refuses to look at him, turning away sickened and grumbling something about idiot aliens and sword swinging boobies. She stomps angrily off and he can tell she's more than angry. She's hurt. She's afraid. She's appalled. Really, she's the better person for it, the better of the two of them. Always has been, always will be. If only Wilf could see her now. Such a strange man, but wise. And funny.

The wooden soldiers take the humor out of everything.

Well, not even they can do that entirely. There is the curious fact that they look exactly like 'men in black'. Government goons. The 'fuzz'. It's a testament to the veracity of the Fables' stories; no aggressor from his own universe would design soldiers so abhorrently cliché. They wear business suits. Black suits with black ties and black sunglasses, on a decidedly less than sunny day. It was the bloody briefcase brigade.

The faithful citizens of Fabletown had spent the entire day blocking off the two ends of the street in front of the Woodlands apartments with large, blue construction barrels filled with cement. They were stacked into barricades two barrels high at the intersections, and now hand-picked fighters crouched behind them, looking out between the inevitable cracks with nervous, shifting eyes.

The Prince cocks his sword jauntily over his shoulder, before striding off to man the wall on the left – the one expected to bear the brunt of the attack – casually whistling from _Les Miserables_. The Doctor is reminded, not for the first time, of another debonair young man in a military coat. Another careless saunter into certain death. Another war, another time.

Shaking himself back to the present, he follows Rose Red to where she is stationed on right hand wall. There doesn't seem to be any sort of definitive hierarchy among the defenders, no chain of command, and the he gets the distinct impression that the two of them are it. So he joins the handful of folks perched on the first level of barrels and peaking carefully over the top of the wall to the oncoming battalion beyond.

They advance in perfect lock-step and he thinks of cybermen marching across a vast, green, well manicured lawn. There's just about the same level of emotion pouring off of these individuals - if they can be said to be individual, looking like several hundred nearly identical siblings dressed up as the Blues Brothers for a Halloween parade. They look human, or humanoid anyway, from this distance. But he's seen the square faced, knock-kneed youth the Fables all call Pinocchio; has seen the sculpted wooden leg snapped off below the knee and covered in blood that the unshaven, tow-headed character named Jack had proudly displayed with a completely unbelievable story about taking down three of the soldiers by himself. There had been a foot on that obscure appendage, and a shoe. A shoe with a thousand matched pairs stomping their inexorable way towards the suddenly pathetic seeming wall of barrels. People will die behind this wall and he knows he has to try.

The Doctor swallows heavily; then he gets on top of the wall.

"Are you insane," Rose Red hisses in a stage whisper from her position ducked behind the top ramparts.

"Possibly," he throws back conversationally, before turning forward to throw his voice at the advancing column. "Hey…hey, you!" he shouts at the regiment of Wall Street brokers. It occurs to him that he has absolutely no idea who any of his attackers are, let alone who their commander might be. "With the guns and the suits. I'm giving you a chance to end this peacefully. Believe me, war is not the answer. We can settle our differences without violence if you just put down your guns and-" a fierce whistle pierces the air as a tiny projectile hurtles by, quite close to the Doctor's ear. The Doctor sputters a moment before finally getting out, "That wasn't very nice!" He's about to berate the wooden army some more, when Rose Red yanks on the hem of his coat causing him to topple backwards off the high barrels. A pair of bullets streak by above him, passing through the space taken up so recently by his torso. He looks up from his position half collapsed in Rose Red's arms to see her striking aquamarine eyes clouded with worry. "Right," he gasps out, "No second chances then."

She nods and he finds his feet. The bullets are flying regularly overhead now. He looks up and thinks of rain. Sideways rain. Steel grey rain. No, bullets are supposed to hail aren't they? His skin suddenly seems paper thin and over-sensitive. He can literally feel aftershocks of the slugs vibrating through the air. It feels like raindrops pattering against his cheeks and there's that rain again.

Soon the distant crack of pop guns from the opposite end of the street is joined by the more immediate thunder of those weapons in the hands of his close compatriots. 'Don't,' he thinks crazily, 'Don't shoot. Not until you see the whites of their eyes.' And of course, to a man, their opponents are sporting shades. Bullets rip through clothes, ruffle hair, imbed with a thunk into wooden foreheads. Timber shatters and splinters and the soldiers continue on steadfastly. No, that's not right, it's supposed to be the steadfast _tin_ soldier.

He comes to the sudden realization that he's frozen. He is standing on a fortification at the outbreak of a battle he's actually about to fight against animated timber from a fairy tale world and debating the relative metaphorical qualities of bullets and toy army men. Never, in his wildest dreams – and he's had some pretty wild ones over the centuries - could he ever have imagined this situation. Who is he kidding? He can't do this. He's never been good at this sort of thing. Running, that's what he's good at. Throw your hat over the Dalek's eyestalk and hope they're too dumb to figure out centripetal motion will shake it free until you're well out of range. And here he's trapped himself behind a wall. Donna was right, Donna was usually right where he was concerned, and now he's really gone and done it. Gone and bet it all on a silly dream; on a stupid piece of molded metal that keeps returning to his hands no matter how many times he sends it away. Why can't he just let it go? Why does he always need to satisfy that insatiable curiosity of his? Curiosity kills cats and Time Lords. Really, who is he trying to fool? Though dissembling, that's very him.

Dissemble. Disassemble. Disable. Yes, disabling he _can_ do.

Whipping out the sonic screwdriver, and earning himself a curious look from the gruff looking, crossbow-packing, billy-goat stationed next to him, he flips the dial to its most useful, and most oft used, setting. Pointing the device at the soldier closest to the wall, he watches with no little satisfaction as it's legs come unscrewed at the knee and it collapses in a heap at the foot of the barricade. The Doctor pauses to look down and admire his handiwork, only to see a number of large field mice scamper out from the cracks between the barrels and over the prostrate form of his hapless victim. As the tiny terrors race off towards the oncoming horde, he sees that they are carrying miniscule little men upon their backs. Men dressed like old time London Bobbies.

Ooooohhhkkaaaayyy.

He finds the next closest soldier and sends him tumbling beneath the advancing feet of his cohorts. A weaponless individual bends down and retrieves his fallen brother's AK-47. The Doctor takes care of him too. One after another they fall. Point and buzz and crumple to the pavement. Like dominoes in a line, and still the soldiers advance. They climb heedlessly over the piling bodies. So many waver and fall, too many to be all from his screwdriver, and still they reach the wall in droves. Faces explode into shards of wood and singed hairpieces as they meet with shotgun blasts at point blank range. He sees a Fable bury his sword into a soldier's shoulder, where it persistently sticks and gets in the soldier's way as he raises his own gun to shoot the Fable in the chest. The Doctor watches as the defender topples backwards off the barricade, a huge red hole in place of his makeshift armor. Wonders if there's anything he can do to help him. Sees others run to help him first, and yes, there will be time to play doctor later…if anyone survives.

The fighting is getting hot now. It is hand to hand, but on the soldiers' side, there are far too many hands. He feels the tide turning like a shift in the atmosphere, an unseen drop in barometric pressure that causes mercury to fall and rheumatic joints to ache. It is turning against them. The wall will breach, there's no saving it. They're sailing a doomed ship and he knows that feeling well. He's not the only one to recognize it. Fables start to peel away from the wall, start to back towards the Woodlands, their weapons still raised in desperate defense. Down along the line, barrels tumble in a confused mass and black forms rush through in a swarm.

"Fall back!" the cry runs along the line. He hears it. It's not a coward's way out, his mind extemporizes without conscious focus, it's part of the plan. And of course it's not, because if it were the cowards' option then he'd be taking it. Every time. Instead he finds himself jumping to the ground and ducking behind one of the more sturdy portions of remaining wall. The screwdriver is still in his hand and he twists one end frantically, searching for the right setting.

"Doctor, are you coming!" Rose Red has run along the barricade and found him stationary while the rest of the Kipling Street line is in retreat.

"In a minute," he grumbles his response. Finally finding the correct setting, he aims the sonic screwdriver at the barrels before him. Its familiar high pitched whine fills his ears.

"Doctor," the girl argues persuasively, lowering her gun and pointing frantically back towards the Woodlands, "We need to fall back. If we don't we could get caught in the grenade barrage!"

"I'm working on it!" He hisses through gritted teeth. He can hear the sound of the soldiers pounding upon the other side, grabbing ahold of the barrels and pulling themselves up and over the top. They are shouting to one another, boasting. Random bursts of gunfire ring out across the ramparts where some enterprising soldiers have already conquered the rise and taken advantage of the high ground to fire back down at the fleeing Fables. They should be able to feel the wall trembling beneath them by now, quivering with the screwdriver's sonic pulse. That is, if they can feel much of anything through their fleshless feet.

"WHAT ARE YOU _DOING_?!" Rose Red shouts above the din of gunfire and grappling combatants.

"RESONATING CONCRETE!" he bellows his reply, his hand beginning to shake with the force of the screwdriver's actions

"WHAT?!" Rose screams in response.

He doesn't have time to respond before the blue, cement filled barrels in front of him start to visibly vibrate on their own. They buzz against one another like giant, blue bees stacked in a two layered hive. Rose grips at the fabric of his jacket, caught in the act of getting in his face to ask him again what he thinks he's doing, when she notices the humming wall. "What the-" she says in an awed half whisper. The Doctor grabs her by the elbow and drags her forcibly backwards into the street and away from the carnage that's about to ensue.

An explosion sounding from the completely wrong direction forces him to turn around. There behind him is a scene straight out of Michelangelo's _Last Judgment_. The street is filled with humans and animals and wooden soldiers alike, all running and cowering from the fiery death that rains down from above. The Doctor had almost forgotten the plan up until that moment: hold the enemy at the barricades only long enough to give them a false sense of security, so that when the defenders fall back as planned, the soldiers will chase them unheedingly into the street and become sitting ducks for the aerial attacks. Now every window lining Bullfinch Street is filled with Fables, young and old, tossing grenades down on the invaders. Hawks and owls and bluebirds of happiness swoop low over their opponents' heads, dropping volatile canisters gripped tight in their claws. Explosion after explosion rocks the pavement and great gouts of flame burst like giant orange tiger-lilies, freckled with soaring wooden body parts. Heat crashes in confusing waves around him, sweeping plumes of smoke into every alley and doorway. Above him, a frog in a waistcoat and bow-tie whoops enthusiastically from the back of a flying cow and lobs grenades willy-nilly over his shoulder.

Well…maybe not Michelangelo then.

He feels the cold breath of the blast and the biting teeth of the flying concrete on the back of his neck before he hears the commotion. He is suddenly engulfed in a cloud of heavy, airborne debris so thick he loses sight of Rose Red and the cow and the explosive carnage in front of him. His ears are ringing with the force of the detonation and there is a sharp pain emanating from his kneecaps. Looking down he sees grey trousers with torn out knees resting against a grey street next to grey covered hands planted in subconscious support when he was blown off of his feet. It occurs to him, perhaps a tad belatedly, that the cement likely did not have enough time to dry properly after being poured into the barrels only just that afternoon. As a result, it was conceivable he misjudged the sonic setting for a primarily outward blast. Possibly. Just a smidge.

Coughing and wheezing in the thick air, he glances over his shoulder and sees…nothing. There is a wall of billowing white smoke between himself and where the barricades should be, where they had been just moments before. Then, struggling out of the smoke like some pitiful refugee, comes one of the wooden soldiers. His left leg is blown off just above the knee and he is supporting himself and limping along using his impressive semi-automatic as a crutch. He too is covered head to foot in a fine grey dust. He notices the Doctor at approximately the same time the Doctor catches sight of him. He seems stymied for a moment, as if not entirely sure how to progress. Certainly, it would be in his nature to level his gun at the pathetic Fable lying prostrate before him in the dust, but given his current position, such action might result in a wholly ineffectual falling on his face. The Doctor reads all this in the curiously expressive brows above his incomprehensibly unharmed sunglasses, and does not give him the chance to react. Leaping to his feet, he whips the broadsword from the loose scabbard at his side and strikes the soldier a fierce blow in his remaining good leg. The soldier's look turns from consideration to dismay, as he slowly topples sideways into the street; lacking, a voice jokes in the back of the Doctor's head, a leg to stand on.

If the tightly packed buildings of a city street are good for one thing, it is channeling even a fairly light wind into a fierce tunnel. The Doctor feels the brush of clean air sweep across his brow, and the smoke and cement debris begin almost immediately to clear. He can see the barrel wall now, or what remains of it anyway, after his meddling. Too, he can see stark, suited figures continuing to pour over its sides, weapons at the ready. One stands poised quite near the large hole his ingenuity has made in the defense-works, and raises his gun purposefully. The Doctor follows his line of sight, and feels both his fluttering hearts leap into his chest as he observes Rose Red, covered in dust and grime, tottering gamely to her feet.

"Rose!" he brays in hoarse warning, triggering a sobering blast of _déjà vu_ and setting certain wheels into inevitable motion. Slow motion. Around him, wooden soldiers plunge over the makeshift wall, falling like flower petals wafting in a summer breeze. Some run like grey wraiths through the billowing cement cloud filling the breach, but so haltingly that it seems their feet are stuck in wet concrete. Beside him, a human looking Fable's nose cracks audibly and spurts black blood in a leisurely fountain as it impacts with the butt end of a slowly swung rifle. Before him, the soldier on top of the wall finishes taking his aim and fires, the gun kicking back against his shoulder and causing him a momentary loss of balance. A bright burst of flame with a dark killing dot at its core leaps from the muzzle of the weapon and he is moving.

He is moving. He is not clinging for all he's worth to a precious, life-giving handhold against a slick white wall. He is not shackled. He is not caged. He is not caught behind some locked, metal, blast-proof door. He is not blocked by fallen debris or hindered by extraneous security checkpoints. He is not sheltered within the confines of some frail human's mind, or of his own, for that matter. He is _moving_, and he is running to beat the Devil.

He's beaten the Devil before.

Well, sort of.

His eyes never leave the bullet. It corkscrews through the air like a dolphin ripping through waves, leaving minute fissures in its wake. He does not acknowledge the figures surrounding him, half fleeing backwards in apparent confusion, the other half advancing with emotionless ferocity. A constant, ponderous stream of right to left across his path, he dodges the solid forms without thought or effort. The bullet edges closer.

He does not look at her. Cannot look at her. Cannot see the terror he knows is written across her face. Cannot look away from the racing death. Cannot falter, even for one hairsbreadth of a moment. Forms bend about him, speed making strangely elongated and ephemeral shapes of them. He cannot afford to trip over a shattered timeline. Cannot fail. Not now. Not this time. Not again. The bullet grinds to a crawl, mere inches from its target.

Touch is the first sensation to return. Beneath his fingers, skin warm and smooth, with tiny tickling hairs. Weight and substance, and resistance which gives way almost immediately. Then sound, finally managing to catch up. A low confused drone becoming a cacophony of screams and explosions. Pain, which is not necessarily a derivative of touch. Pain in his ear drums as concussive force presses inwards upon them. Pain in his shoulder as the bullet skids past in a flutter of torn cloth. Pain in his hip as it slams then scrapes against the busted tarmac.

"Safe!" proclaims the portly umpire in his mind's eye.

"Not yet," cautions a voice that sounds suspiciously like Jack.

The broken wall of barrels looms large over his prostrate form and figures in black suits carrying black guns and sporting black glasses over their black eyes horde over its ramparts like flies crawling over the rim of a glass. He rolls to his knees in regular time, the world drawing alongside of him at last, leaving him winded and sore. Curiously, he still has ahold of the sword. He uses the point to leverage himself to a standing position and finds himself faced with a new wall. A circle of white and black, no grey areas allowed, and steely weapons pointed in at him like the spokes of a wheel. He raises his own weapon, point out and threatening for all it wavers and droops in unsteady hands.

He stares at the soldier directly before him. Makes him his world. Makes the crisp linen of his dress shirt the boundary of explorable creation. Fixates every sense on the quivering point of the sword and that great white expanse and the rush of falling forwards and into the void of it like a key sliding into a lock with the force of everything that ever was and is and will be crowding behind it. Somewhere, from outside his known universe, he hears Rose shouting his name and he thinks he knows what this is.

It feels like redemption.

More than that, it feels like a dance. The step and swoop and swing set to music that plays only in his own mind. The endless whirling of the spheres; moon around earth around sun around galaxy. The turn of life from birth to death, forever renewed by more intimate forms of dancing. The skip and sashay of two lovers who aren't lovers yet, who may never be, but who find themselves irrevocably caught in the dance. He is moving quickly, that much he knows. Quick from his perspective, which is very fast indeed. Splinters fly and suit ties sever and he is quite firmly convinced that no one, no one in the entire universe, can hear the sweet opening horn riff of _In the Mood_ and not be inspired to movement.

Horns. Car horns. Car horns in E and A and one B flat. A symphony, if not Glenn Miller. A signal. A warning. Get off the street, his mind interprets. And yes, tactical retreat sounds like a fine idea.

He reaches blindly out behind himself. Her warm hand slides into his of its own accord and he takes a millisecond to be pleased at her readiness to trust him. "Run," he shouts to his companion as he tugs her forcefully towards the half circle of parked cars marking the inner battlements. Already, the space between the vehicles and the iron railing encircling the Woodlands is packed with people. White people and brown people and hairy people and scaly people and…He laughs aloud. He laughs for the pure unadulterated joy of it. He laughs because he's alive to laugh. They're both alive. Better with two. Three's company, four's a crowd, and five is right out. A mass of humans and monsters and animals turn at bay, turn to make their last stand. Fight and run away and live to fight again, and its all so bloody senseless that it's absolutely, mind-numbingly hilarious.

Behind him, he can hear her laughing, too.


	19. Chapter 19

Whatever would the Djinn do now?

Faced with both his ancient enemies – the Daleks _and_ the metal men – it seemed a battle which could not be won. He worried that this challenge would prove one too many for the indomitable Djinn…and his adoring Rose.

It never occurred to him how the two monsters would fare one against the other.

In moments he is laughing at his dove's interpretation of the posturing banter between two strangely voiced competitors. She is laughing too, pulling faces so as to be able to continue with her tale. However, she is not able to keep a hint of hilarity from the flat metallic speech of her story's villains. A vaguely amused sounding Dalek is enough to throw him again into hysterics, and his dove joins him. Laughing in the face of danger, in the face of the end of the world; this is what the Djinn does, what Rose does, and of course, what his brave little dove does.

She manages to pull herself together, while he is still wiping at his eyes. "The two of them faced off, the Daleks vowing to exterminate the metal men, and the latter in turn insisting on assimilating the Daleks into their ranks. It was war, and all Rose and the Djinn could do was sit back and see how everything played out."

"I cannot imagine the Djinn just standing by," he adds sensibly.

"He didn't, not exactly." She smiles in that way which makes him wonder just what it is she knows and is keeping from him. "It turned out that Mickey was not the only individual to cross over from the other universe. He had brought friends with him and they freed the Djinn from where he was being held by metal men and took him back to their universe."

"Whatever for," he nearly shouts, "Did they not realize his skills were needed to save the world he lived in?"

"Yes, but they had information he needed. See, the metal men had been crossing over from the balloon universe through rifts that were being torn in the fabric of reality."

He huffs in annoyance. "As if we could not figure that out for ourselves."

"Yes, yes," she soothes, "But sometimes a little exposition is necessary." He blinks at her. It is a strange thing for her to say. As if she really were the author of this tale, as opposed to its recounting heroine. She goes on to explain how the strange weather that had been occurring was a result of these rifts and that the Doctor returned to Rose's world with a better idea of how to close them once and for all. That would not, she explains, remove the metal men or the Daleks from her home, just prevent them from going over into the land of Pete-not-her-father. "But the Djinn was a genius," she says fervently, "And he was sure he'd find a way to take care of them. Mind you, things were about to get messier."

She tells how the Daleks demanded that Rose open their terrible ark, and his heart soars as she confronts them. He does not need for her to paint the scene for him, as he knows what must have happened. He has been on the receiving end of her self-righteous stare. He has felt the heat of her anger sweep over him like a blast from a furnace. He has known what it is to challenge her, and he knows himself unfit for such a battle. She had once destroyed the Daleks entire race with a wave of her hand, how could they hope to intimidate her where he failed?

It is perhaps the least surprising thing ever when the Djinn rushes in to rescue her from extermination at the last possible moment. He has brought backup too, and all seems to be going according to his plan as the heroes escape in a rain of artillery fire.

Of course, it would be the idiot boy who threw a wrench in the Djinn's well oiled machine.

Tripping over himself and falling against the ark, he unwittingly primes it, and as the others dash for freedom, it cannot help but be with the fear that worse is yet to come. He finds himself unable to take joy in the reunion of Jackie the Mum and her long lost pseudo-husband. He is too concerned with what the smooth black side of the great hovering sphere might be hiding. Not even his dove's description of the massive battle between the forces of the metal men and the Daleks can distract him. He feels a shudder run down his spine on Rose's behalf as the ark cracks open like an egg and its contents emerge.

"Daleks poured out of it like wasps rushing from a hive in a great black cloud. Thousands. Millions. They blacked the sky with their floating metal shells, and fired down indiscriminately upon people and metal men alike; the bright glare of their weapons' blasts leaving trails of black spots in the vision of all those watching." She plays with the hem of her skirts where it brushes against the smooth skin of her ankles. "The Djinn had a plan, of course, but Rose didn't much like the sound of it. It reminded her a bit of the Emergency Program, and that hadn't gone too well…not from her perspective anyway."

"The Djinn explained how anyone who had spent time traveling in the void…like the Daleks and the metal men, or like himself, were all covered in telltale radiation. He had these silly blue and red spectacles with him, and Rose had wondered why he'd been carrying them around all day. He finally explained that they allowed him to visualize the void radiation coming off of individuals, and he slipped them onto her face. Then he backed away, and Rose could see that he was covering in glowing, yellow specks of light. It was like…a halo…or maybe the ghostly ring you sometimes see around the full moon right before a bad storm." She raises her hand and waves it languidly back and forth in front of her face. "And Rose could see that she was covered in the same stuff. It was beautiful. Like a mist of gold dust."

She sighs then. "The Djinn said that if he could manage to open the void then all the things which had traveled through at one point or another would be sucked into it. He could then seal the breach behind them and save the world." She smiles crookedly, "Rose thought that was a great idea, but what was he going to do about Mickey and her and everyone good who'd been rocketing back and forth between the universes all day?"

She looks as though she will either laugh or cry, he cannot tell which, but does neither in the end. "He said they would all be safe in the balloon world. That Jackie could stay with the alternate Pete, and Rose could be with the family she always wanted."

"And?" He cannot help but break in at this point and she turns to him expectantly. "And is that what Rose wanted? Her family?"

"No," she cries, and there is real heat to her reaction. "No," she adds more calmly, collecting herself and clasping her hands into a tight ball on her lap. "If my Lord does not know by now what it was that Rose most desired…well, then I have wasted many a night in the telling of this tale." She shakes her head decisively. "Rose told the Djinn that she intended to stay with him, that she would honor her promise to stay by his side forever. She turned to her mother, begging her to understand why she had to leave her alone like she was. And while she was turned away from the Djinn…" His dove throws her hands up into the air with exasperation and allows them to fall back against her legs with a loud smack. "That damned idiot of an alien slipped one of those stupid universe jumping devices over her head and sent her along to the other world with Pete and the rest."

He shares her indignant reaction. Truth, it had taken years for him to recognize that his dove was the master of her own destiny, that she was perfectly capable of making decisions for herself without recourse to the controlling attentions of any male. The Djinn, for all his vaunted knowledge, had apparently never learn that fact. He was bound and determined to save Rose's life, no matter the eventual damage to her soul. Genius he may have been, but blind as a bat.

"You can pretty much imagine how Rose reacted to that," she says with venom. "She immediately used the device to return to the Djinn's side and gave him a piece of her mind." He purses his lips closed so as not to laugh aloud. In his minds eye he sees his dove, one angry finger out and pointing at the Djinn's chest, her stance wide and threatening, her voice a harsh approximation of its normal sweet tones. Yes, he can completely imagine the predicament the Djinn found himself in at that moment, and he finds himself pitying the strange man his fate.

Suddenly, her mood becomes subdued. Like a pennant fluttering limp in a dearth of wind, she seems to deflate before his eyes. "He said that if she stayed, she'd never be able to see her mum or Mickey or any of the alternate universe people ever again. And Rose, she couldn't say she didn't care about that; she did, but she just told the Djinn that she wasn't ever going to leave. That she'd made her decision. That everyone has to leave home sometime. And he stared at her, looking all angry in that way that only he could. Looking like the heart of the hurricane. A person could go mad, looking at him when he was like that, but then…" She flashes a slow and wistful smile. "He looked away, as if he'd just lost some sort of cosmic staring contest. He looked away and Rose knew that for once…just this once…he _believed_ her. He believed in forever and impossible and all those things he'd told her over and over again just _could not be_."

This, he knows, is a giant step, and he does not need the sudden seriousness of her voice and manner to tell him so. The Djinn was, if nothing else, an arrogant fool. Oh yes, he was intelligent…knowledgeable…clever; all things that wise and learned men wish to be. And undying! Granted the inestimable gift of centuries worth of time to add to his knowledge and perfect his understanding. And if he was arrogant, well, he had good right to be. But too, he was a fool, for a true man of learning knows that there is always more to discover…always more to be learned…and there will always be someone who knows something you do not. The Djinn felt if there was something he didn't know, well, then it was not worth knowing. But here his dearest Rose, stupid ape that she may be, had grasped something he had categorically refused to comprehend.

There was something greater than he.

Yes, something bigger and more indomitable than the all powerful Djinn. Something more ancient, more abiding. Something vaster than the wide reach of space and longer than the incomprehensible stretch of time. Something not quantifiable or qualifiable, and therefore without any place in the Djinn's well ordered and scientific mind. Something worth dying for and worth living for both at once. Something true and beautiful and sad and wonderful…and the Djinn's Rose had known it all along. To admit that simple fact, to believe for just a moment that his erstwhile companion was right where he was wrong, to drop his eyes in the discomforting acknowledgement of her ultimate superiority in this one thing…it was…it was…

It was a feeling he now knew well.

Unaware of his internal struggle to categorize his emotions with regard to the amazing individual before him, his dove goes on. "The two of them immediately set her to work helping to open the rift. They stood across the room from one another, each poised at a lever, and at a word from the Djinn, they opened a hole into the void."

She raises a hand to her head and smoothes back her veil and he wonders if she is remembering something that caused her hair to fly awry. "The pull was tremendous. Rose could barely keep her grip. A great wind seemed to be blowing her and the Djinn and everything else in the room towards the great vortex that had opened in the tall white wall. She saw Daleks and metal men alike go flying past her, pulled into who knew what horrible hell-like dimension. And then, everything started slowing down. Rose knew not all of the horde of Daleks she had seen warring outside of the building could not have passed by her in that short amount of time. The rift couldn't be closing yet! Her eyes squinted against the gale force winds dragging her backwards into the whirlpool hole between the universes, she saw that the lever on her side had fallen out of place. Holding on with every ounce of strength she had left, she made her way to the lever and pushed it back into place."

Her face is dark as she relates this to him. "She could hear the Djinn yelling to her. Telling her to hang on. Begging her not to…not to let go." Not to leave him, he thinks to himself, feeling sympathy for the Djinn's unspoken terror. Feeling sympathy for the Djinn in so many ways tonight, in a way he never has before. "But the tug of the void was just too strong. Her fingers slipped from their purchase on the lever and Rose found herself tumbling through the air towards the tear in existence, and out of her own world forever. As she fell, she caught sight of the Djinn's stricken face. His one hand was held out, reaching towards her even though he had to know there was no way he would ever catch her. She saw his eyes, and for a moment couldn't tell whether they were brown or blue. They just looked…lost. And she was so, so sorry that she had to be the cause of such pain to him."

His dove ducks her head, hiding her face from him. It has been a long time since she has given in to her emotions in his presence. She seems determined not to do so now. She takes a huge breath, the kind intended to calm shaking shoulders and dry filling eyes. "It was the last thing she thought, before she crashed into Pete-not-her-father and was pulled into the alternate universe to safety."

He blinks. She remains poised with her head bowed. "She…she was with her mother, then?" he prompts.

She nods. "Yes. She tried to get back, of course. But the jumping devices didn't seem to work anymore. Mickey figured that meant that the Djinn had succeeded in closing the rift on the other side. She was trapped, with no way to return to the one place she wanted to be."

She sighs, and raises her head. He sees she has avoided tears, but her face looks as though a purple veil has been pulled over the whole of it, bringing an unnatural shadow to her features. "For five and a half hours, Rose stayed by the wall in the other universe. She pounded her fists against it helplessly, crying her heart out, sending up prayers to deities she didn't really believe in anymore. Her mother tried to lead her away, and Mickey too, but she flat out refused. She would wait for him. He would come for her. She believed it with all her being. At times, she thought that she could almost feel his presence. That he was just a breath away, close enough to touch, and farther than the farthest star."

"But it was no use." She shakes her head dejectedly. "Five and a half hours became five and a half days, and before five and a half months could pass in that other world, she felt him calling her. Her mother tried to convince her it was just a dream, but Rose knew better. The Djinn was calling her, and she would go to him, whatever the cost."

"She found herself on a cold, windswept beach in a foreign country. She walked up and down on the packed sand for hours, apologizing over and over to Pete and the others, and swearing that this was the place. He would be coming here. She knew it." His dove cocks her head and regards him with intelligent amber eyes. "The locals called the place Bad Wolf Bay, and she knew that was a sign. She was meant to go there…they both were…and she waited and hoped, and eventually he appeared."

"The Djinn came for her?" he cannot keep the tone of jubilation from his speech.

"Yes." She looks away. "He came to say goodbye. He told Rose he couldn't cross the rift to where she was, all he could do was send an image of himself to talk to her. Even to do just that, he said, he was burning up a star for fuel."

He thinks on that a moment. His dove has told him that the tiny pricks of light in the sky are really enormous swirling masses of burning gas. That the sun which revolves forever about the earth is just one of millions of such giant lamps giving heat and light to worlds afar. He thinks of the power it would take to drain one. Thinks of the sacrifice involved in such an act. Thinks of a tiny red star in an ornate gilded box, and understands, just a little.

"They only had a few moments in which to speak, and Rose knew that…that if she didn't tell the Djinn then how she felt, that she'd never get the chance to do so again. And so…" Her voice wavers and breaks, like a vase toppling from a high perch to land in shards on the mosaic floor. Her words spew forth like water from its broken lip. "And so Rose told the Djinn that…that she loved him and he…" Her resolve follows her voice's lead, crumbling to dust at her feet. "He said," she whispers, tears coursing freely down her nose and cheeks, "Quite right too."

Yes, well, that was very like the Djinn, wasn't it?

"Then he went on and said that, if it was his last chance to say it…Rose Tyler…" She pauses, her mouth open.

"What?!" He cannot hold his tongue any longer. "Rose Tyler what?"

"Nothing," she responds evenly, "He said nothing. His time ran out and he disappeared."

"He didn't say it?!" He is incredulous. Furious. How could the Djinn do so to his lovely dove?! How dare he?! Some 'lord of time' he turned out to be! "My dove," he shakes his head in dismay, "Rose must have known how he felt about her."

"How could she?!" She is sobbing openly now, her voice a raw cry of anguish. "She never knew what he was thinking, never knew what he thought about anything. He never told her how he really felt, because _that_ would have been the last straw wouldn't it? That would have just opened the floodgates and he never would have been able to stop telling her and showing her…and he couldn't afford to do that. Couldn't afford to appear weak and vulnerable and…and human."

She is shaking now, with fury and sadness. He has not seen her like this in a very long time. Not since the first difficult weeks of their acquaintance. He wants to calm her like a nervous steed, to comfort her like one of his beloved daughters. Before he can stop to think of the propriety of his action, he finds himself kneeling beside her on the rich carpet. He places arms about her shaking shoulders and she buries her head in his chest. He feels a hot wetness spread through the cloth of his tunic, as he rocks her as gently as he would a babe.

He does not know what to do. He does not know if there is anything he can do to help his poor wounded dove. Jewels and fine clothes and expensive silks he can give her. Sumptuous apartments and rich fabrics and books from distant lands. He can give her slaves and serving women. He can provide her with foods cooked by the greatest chefs in his land. He can give her flowers cut fresh from his own gardens and ices brought down from the mountains on his swiftest horses. He can shower her with every gift his vast kingdom has to offer. But he cannot give her the stars. He cannot give her the universe. He cannot give her even one tiny part of what the Djinn had already offered. And worst of all, he cannot give her just those few seconds of time that would have made all the difference to her. All the difference in the world.

He lowers his head in defeat, and cradles his darling dove for all he is worth. For the first time, his eye is drawn to the scene depicted upon the lush woven tapestry beneath his dove's recumbent form. It shows a hunting scene, with the huntsman and his dogs surrounding the quarry, while the nobles hang back on their great war steeds in stately observation. In the middle of the image reclines a fine lady, her hair undone and flowing free over her breast. In one hand she holds a bridle of spun gold thread. The other hand is tangled in the mane of the pale beast reposed upon her lap. Its cloven hooves are splayed out behind it, a tail like a lion's wrapped about its snow white flanks. It's delicate, horse-like head lays between her knees and its wickedly sharp horn rests its point beneath her heart. One long lashed eye stares up at the maiden's face in thoughtless adoration. It does not see the trap which has been laid for it. It does not sense the danger.

Or perhaps, he thinks sadly, it does not care to run any longer.


	20. Chapter 20

The metal is cool against her forehead. Not cool enough to curb the painful pounding across her brows, but enough for momentary relief. For a brief time she can imagine she is back on the TARDIS, that she's overtired from a long bout of fighting the evils of the universe and, if and when she finds the energy, she can just stumble off to her room and collapse bonelessly into the center of her mattress. It's a pleasant dream, and it's the pitiful moans of her patients that wake her out of it.

Donna pushes back from where she was leaning her head against the IV stand and surveys the floor before her. It is lined with row upon row of white mattresses, each with a bandaged and groaning occupant. People, or near-enough people anyhow, share floor space with barnyard animals and creatures that defy description. Each are given the same careful attention and she thinks briefly that the Doctor would approve of this sort of inter-species egalitarianism. She gives a heavy sigh before bending down to pick up her basket of bloodied bandages. There's not much more she can do here. _She's_ no doctor, and she's got no pretensions to be one. But she can change bandages and hold hands and tell people, and not-so-much-people, that everything's going to be fine. Everything's all right.

The fact that she doesn't believe any of it for herself is cleverly buried in a false sincerity she's spent some time perfecting. She's had a good teacher.

Dumping the dirty cloths out into a larger bin and picking up some clean folded ones in their place, she returns to her station. On the way she walks by what passes for an operating table in these circumstances. It's a single gurney, lifted form the local hospital, with an anesthetic machine beeping at its head. A human-looking patient lies asleep upon the bed, an opaque blue mask affixed over his mouth and nose. An equally blue shower cap hides the color of his short hair. He is tall and pale. He's not wearing any clothes, and the thin green hospital blanket is pulled up only to his waist, leaving his torso bare. She cannot tell if she should recognize him. He looks peaceful. He might never wake. The surgeon is busy, with red splattered gloves buried knuckle deep in the man's chest cavity. Donna turns away, feeling her stomach flip.

She comes again to her row, walks down the line, forcing herself to think about her own patients and not the unrecognizable individual on the table. Gunshot grazes. Broken limbs. Burns from friendly fire. She has the easy cases, the ones a layman can handle. Her patients will survive…mostly…if anyone survives this. None of her charges are stirring now; content, if not well. None of their bandages have bled through and she realizes it's because she's changed them not thirty minutes prior. She's been concentrating solely upon them, working herself into a near frenzy over their comparatively minor issues so that she could ignore what was going on outside. Ignore what was going on with the Doctor.

A huge explosion sounds from beyond the Woodlands walls and she looks up with a jerk. There had been gunshots and minor bumps and bangs for the last hour and a half. The dead and wounded had trucked steadily through the office doors on stretchers. But this particular noise was enough to make all of the make-shift MASH workers in the giant re-purposed office glance nervously around.

Piercing blue eyes squint out above the fabric swath of a medical mask and the military doctor looks angrily around. "Can someone go and see what's causing all that racket?" he grumbles loud enough to be heard all the way across the vast room. His hands otherwise engaged in his patient, he adds with venom, "We'll need to set up additional triage points for whatever it is!"

Donna casts a quick glance over the patients in her row again, then makes for the door at a jog. She passes by the operating table again on her way out, but the doctor doesn't look up from where he is engrossed in his work. She does not look at the young man with the ruined chest. She does not want to know if she knows him. They would all know soon enough.

Out into the hall and down the corridor, she runs to where she knows there is a window looking out over Bullfinch Street. Panting, she sprints up to the glass and pushes her nose flat against it. Her nails rattle nervously against the pane as she gazes down into the street below.

What she sees, is carnage.

Her first impression is of movement. Great, vast grey movement in the form of orange flecked clouds too thick to be fog filling the all the spaces between the buildings, and of tinier and more desperate movement in the indefinite shapes within that must be the fighters. Across and above it all flit birds of all shapes and sizes, birds diving into and through the smoke instead of shying away from it. Light flashes and darkness falls, and every inch of the window seems filled with an inescapable, and terrible motion.

There is fire and smoke and flying debris, and the bodies moving through it all are like nothing more than ghosts. Friends cannot be told from foe, and the chances of her actually catching sight of the Doctor in all this are astronomical. She traces a path with her eyes, out from the front door of the Woodlands and through the trampled and destroyed garden fronting the massive building, to the arrowhead topped iron fence marking the entrance. There she can see some order in the chaos. Ranks of Fables lined behind ranks of cannons. Still smoking cannons.

Ah.

Well, there's her answer then. Time to turn around. Time to run back to the office and report her findings like a good girl. That's right, turning around now. Nothing more to see here. Nothing more than an epic battle going on just under her nose and her best friend in the entire world – forget that, the entire universe - caught up in it somewhere. Dear God, she hopes he's still caught up in it somewhere. Hopes he isn't lying prostrate beneath some strange doctor's knife. Hopes he isn't lying under a white sheet, tucked away in a corner of the converted office behind a giant tusk from some unthinkably large elephant.

Where the hell is he?!

Her palms flatten white and red against the pane before her as she shifts her head desperately from side to side, trying to get enough depth of field to allow her to recognize faces at a distance. She can't tell anyone from this far away and above the scene. There are animals and men and women and-

A shock of bright red hair catches her eye and she focuses upon it without thought.

Rose Red, confident as always despite her precarious position, stands out from the line of battle, crosses fearlessly in front of the cannons, and raises her arm. She's pointing at something and Donna follows her hand, but can't see anything through the smoke. A small black form rises above the fray, following Rose's direction, and, floating leisurely above the embattled crowds below, glides into Donna's view.

It's a crow. Or perhaps a raven. They're larger than crows, aren't they? And smarter? She's seen them preening themselves contentedly on the grounds of the Tower back home, seen their black eyes blink intelligently at the passing tourists. Their kind has looked down upon the heads of kings and criminals alike, has seen the bloody deaths of each in turn. The Tower would fall without them, or so the story goes, and their ubiquitous forms had always soared upon the unseen thermals above its walls. Only stories of course, and mostly stupid superstition, but who was she to question the truth of fairy stories; certainly not now, at any rate. Hovering above the battle, this raven looked like the herald of death so many poets painted it to be. Lord of the underworld, a seagull's shadow on the night's Plutonian shore.

The raven opens its beak, and instead of the expected raucous cry, a great gout of flame emerges from its maw to pour fiery death upon those below.

A great cheer roars out from the sidewalk. The gathered Fables are punching their fists into the air, screaming in joyous support of the awesome fireworks display at hand. They cannot see the destruction it has wrought. They cannot see what Donna, from her perch several floors above their heads, can see. If they could, they would not have cheered. They do not see the wooden soldiers cower under the raining flames, catch alight, then rise again to continue their attack, still blazing. They are no longer just an army, they are a conflagration.

It is a nightmare come to life. Worse than a nightmare. They burn like giant pilot lights, blue at the hottest point, then consecutive layers of white, yellow, orange…an entire spectrum of flammability. Walking and talking, with their wood-fashioned eyelashes alight in flickering flame. Live rounds in their weapons explode, ripping apart the guns and the timber hands holding fast to them. The injured warriors continue their advance, unperturbed by fire or dismemberment. They are like demons sent straight from Hell, covered in brimstone and soullessly performing their task of sending others to damnation.

Donna does what the Doctor taught her best: she runs.

She runs to the stairs, not trusting the elevators at this time (or any time, for that matter). She pounds down three flights to the ground floor, with only half an idea of what she intends to do when she gets there. She rushes past the fire hose before she registers its presence in her conscious mind. Skidding back on her heels and reversing direction, she grabs the iron breaking stick and sends the protective glass shattering to the floor. Snatching up the nozzle, she dashes to the emergency exit and crashes through into the lobby. It is packed with people. People running towards the doors, people running away from the doors, people running, apparently in circles, with quiet desperation. One tiny figure with rigid black hair nearly clips her at the waist as he goes by, racing for the outside. He'd receive a kick for his troubles if she wasn't immediately distracted by the hose getting stuck on something behind her.

A buff looking blonde-haired man in a cowboy hat and tight black t-shirt rushes up to her, his six-shooter waving in the breeze. "Hey, you!" she thrusts out an arm to stop him and points the nozzle in his direction. He skids to a halt with a shocked look on his face. "Stop monkey-ing around and give me a hand here!" She nods back at the obstructed hose and then watches as a confusing tumble of emotions flicker across his face: surprise, consideration, deduction, wise-assed confidence, and finally acknowledgement. He nods and races back in the direction she had just come from.

She feels the tension on the hose slacken, and continues to make her way outside at a determined pace. She marches down the steps as if going to a gallows and she thinks she just may very well be doing that. The courtyard is strangely quiet, the pandemonium raging outside the front gates somehow muffled. Donna wonders if that's another aspect of the strange nature of the Woodlands building; what the Doctor called "dimensional transcendence" and what everyone else in the world would term "magic". She's calmer than she thought she'd be in this sort of pressure situation, and she realizes she has the Doctor to thank for that. Facing certain death? No problem. End of the world? Old hat. Burning wooden army? We'll see.

She abruptly comes to the end of her wits along with the end of the hose. She tugs hard in the hope it's merely snagged on something again, but no, it appears to be completely extended. It was made for fighting fires inside the building and it doesn't even reach to the surrounding fence. She's standing in the middle of what was once a fairly proper looking garden, now ripped to shreds by the passage of a hundred animal Fables and their assorted weaponry. Everywhere around her are screaming people and burning people and dying people, and she can't even get her bloody fire hose to reach the blaze.

It's too much. Too much for one little human, even a foolishly brave and brilliant one. Too much for anyone born to live a normal life on a normal Earth where things like aliens and storybook monsters didn't exist. She needs the Doctor, he'll know what to do, and she feels somehow weak for admitting it. She needs him, needs her hero to come riding through the smoke to save her; save them all. She scans the teeming crowd desperately. Where is he?! He can't be hurt, or worse. No, she refuses to even think it, he's there…here…somewhere…she just needs to find him. Find him and let him straighten everything out.

Finally, through a quivering heat haze, she sees him. Or more rightly, she sees the telltale glow of the sonic screwdriver, stark against a backdrop of orange flame and white smoke. One tiny, sky blue spark of hope in the hands of a dust spattered individual, surrounded by grime covered defenders with hastily raised weapons, and kneeling patiently before a bright red object half obscured by the bodies of his gang of protectors.

Bless the man, he's sonic-ing open a fire hydrant.

A great gush of water spurts forth with such force that a contingent of flaming men advancing on the Doctor and his intrepid band is forced back into a heap against their fellows. Steam hisses up from the forming pile of half burning bodies and spray soaks the group encircling the hydrant. Water drips down ecstatic faces, making their fine, coating of dust into fierce looking stripes and allowing individual features to emerge. Waterlogged bangs plaster across a wide forehead smeared with wet ash, and Donna can see a familiar pair of brown eyes staring out from an otherwise unrecognizable countenance.

She wants to shout. She wants to sing. She wants to jump up and down in place and laugh aloud. He's alive! He's all right. He's always all right, the alien bastard…and never. She knew it! Never doubted it for a moment; nope, not her. She thrills to see him and his cohorts making a swift and tactical retreat away from the blazing soldiers. Behind them, a wall of flame progresses at the pace of the walking dead making it up.

It is like something out of a horror flick, although no CGI tricks could ever be presented with this sort of visual realism. Nor could a film ever capture the blasting heat wafting across the courtyard as if released from the confines of some giant oven or the searing smell of burning wood and cloth and…and she didn't much want to think about what else it was she was smelling. Needless to say, it was unpleasant. And the screams! Shrieks of terror and the squeal of twisting metal, and gunfire still going off somewhere in the distance. And beside her, the rallying cry of the jolly old mayor in his blue military garb, as he raises his sword bravely in the air and calls for the other Fables to make one last ditch attempt to save their home from the advancing inferno.

With the Prince and Rose Red at his heels, with lions and tigers and bears flanking his charge, Mayor Cole sprints towards the broken line of ruined vehicles, shouting for one and all to sell themselves dearly. He mounts the nearest car, ready to plunge over to the other side, into almost certain, fiery destruction. Donna turns away, unable to watch as her new friends go to their deaths. Unable to believe it will really end like this. Desperately, she searches the crowd for the Doctor. Maybe the two of them together can help some of the Fables at the last. Maybe they can load some of the injured into the TARDIS and take them far, far away from here. No doubt the Doctor would know of some safe planet willing to take in refugees of all shapes and sizes, but she finds he has disappeared again into the smoke. All she sees anywhere is flame and death and despair.

The wind seems to rise out of nowhere, reminding her, for a moment, of the TARDIS on rapid materialization mode. It shows itself first in the subtle flicker of the flames arising from individual soldiers' smoldering hairpieces. The orange fires licking their wooden frames dance to the side, flicker, and turn a somewhat cooler hue. The tip of Cole's saber, held high in desperate rally of his troops, dips under the force of it and almost drops from its wielder's hands. The Prince's perfectly styled tresses blow wildly across his face, and Donna finds her own red locks flying into her mouth. The wind picks up rapidly; pulling hard at military style waistcoats and flipping hats from their wearer's heads.

Soon all the fires consuming the kindling skin and identical clothing of the soldiers, are burning sideways. The soldiers stumble into one another in confusion. Donna squints her eyes against the onslaught, as the surrounding Fables duck and cover their heads in fear at this new development. She follows suit, huddling against something large and hairy and trembling. Gasping for breath that's being stolen away by the icy wind, she digs rubber heels into the stones of the flagged courtyard and tries to hold herself immobile. A sound like a rushing train thunders through the air, shaking the ground beneath her. Flames roar and objects crash on impact and all is overmatched by the ceaseless din of the hurricane force wind filling the surrounding streets. That bloody damned chicken was right; the sky, it seems, _is _falling. She closes her eyes thinking of her grandfather and his telescope, searching the skies for a blue box he'd never see again.

Mysteriously, incomprehensibly, the sound lessens, and with it the desperate pushing upon her person that threatened to drag her from her fuzzy refuge and throw her into parts unknown. Perhaps like Dorothy, she would have ended up in Oz, fighting her way back to her grey existence in the real world. The prospect didn't seem quite so fantastical anymore.

A voice deeper and louder and more gravelly then she could have imagined belonging to a real being rumbles out, "Too many candles on this birthday cake." Donna blinks her eyes open, sees fur, and chances a look around her sheltering wall of…whatever-it-is, to the origin of the voice beyond.

There amongst toppled barrels and the burnt out bodies of cars, stands the biggest wolf Donna has ever seen. This, in itself, is not a huge feat. Donna hasn't actually ever seen a wolf outside animal channel specials on the telly, but she has the distinct feeling that this is the biggest wolf _anyone _has ever seen. In fact, Donna can think of a number of circus elephants she's seen that are smaller than the massive predator towering over the Fables demolished defenses. Its eyes glow a demonic red, its teeth are bared, and it's a moment before Donna realizes its standing alone in an empty street, all the flaming soldiers having been cleared from its path. "Sorry I'm late, folks," the strangely familiar voice growls out of those gigantic jaws. "Did I get any of you with my huff and puff? It's not the _easiest_ thing to aim." Donna thinks she hears a trace of ironic amusement in that statement, and it's this more than anything the animal has said thus far that brings her shooting to her feet in glee.

"Big-" someone nearby begins shouting, and is immediately drowned out by a huge thunderclap overhead. The sky is lit blue and purple as lightning arches across it. Immediately, rain begins pelting down in large heavy drops. They hiss against the flame heated pavement. They fall like miniature meteors and send puffs of cement dust flying into the air on impact. They rattle a single snare cadence upon car hoods, that becomes increasingly more staccato as the moments pass and the Fable defenders greet their sheriff and liberator.

Donna finds she is still clinging to the fire hose, as if it were her one remaining anchor on reality. She drops the nozzle with a clang and tearing her eyes from the terrific beast before her, scans the crowd for the one familiar face that would make everything all right; always all right. She lifts herself on tiptoe, trying to catch a glimpse of aberrant brown hair and sparkling brown eyes. It's all but hopeless. The Fables so recently crouched in fright behind their makeshift barricade of automobiles have turned into a seething mass, all yearning to get close to the front…to see what's going on with Bigby and the other Fabletown big shots. Donna finds herself dragged along in the pull of their tide, and stumbling out the front gate onto the sidewalk beyond.

Bigby has taken charge. Water pours off his massive back in miniature waterfalls as the force of the rain increases. "Divide into three teams," he growls through tightly clamped fangs. "The first team fights the fires still burning in the buildings, where the rainfall can't get to them." The Prince is quick to round up a group of eager young lads ready and willing to fight the remaining flames. Bigby's massive head swings slowly to the other side. "The second team," he rumbles, "Should tend to all the wounded they can find. Doctor," he cocks his head in address to a sopping wet man in a tattered suit, "Can you handle that?" The man nods, not looking up at the wolf in acknowledgment, and Bigby turns away to issue more orders.

The Doctor's head is bent and his shoulders stooped, and Donna can remember only one other time when he had looked this lost, this…_defeated_. He had been soaking wet then, too. Perhaps that has something to do with it, the limp appearance of his otherwise untamable hair adding to the overall sense of dejection he projects. His head comes slowly up, chestnut locks hanging in his eyes, and he tiredly waves a group of approaching volunteers his way. He straightens and turns to start his unenviable task. His hands remain stuffed within his pockets. She makes to follow him - she always follows him - stepping out from the line of Fables arranged at a respectful, and undoubtedly anxious, distance from the giant wolf.

A dark blue blur rushes past Donna's shoulder, pushing aside several of the idling Fable-folk. It throws itself bodily at Bigby and latches on to the animal's great shaggy neck.

"I knew it!" the blur asserts emphatically.

"Snow?" comes the deep rumbling voice, in a relative whisper. Donna would not have thought a voice like that, echoing as it did from a cavernous throat ringed by razor sharp white teeth, could have conveyed such a level of startled astonishment.

"I knew you'd come in time to save us," Snow sobs, burying her ivory features and coal black hair in Bigby's ample mane, "You always do."

Donna finds herself yet again aghast, seeing the dread-wolf's eyes lighten, from blood red to a more temperate, yet still disturbing, orange. His elongated, wolfish face takes on a look of indulgent awe, as he reaches out a single, giant, claw-tipped paw to steady the rain soaked princess at his ruff.

"You always save me," Snow breathes, slipping around to face him, and cradling his vast muzzle in her tiny, white, perfect hands. She is smiling at him; smiling with a look that suggests it is the end of the tale, and not still the denouement. Smiles as though she's found her happy ending, and it's here and now and always and forever.

"Snow," Bigby intones seriously, the fur around his nose crinkling, "I'm…tickled to see you, too…" bright orange eyes flick about them and come back to rest on her magazine perfect features. "But it's raining cats and dogs, and you're _pregnant_." Donna senses no patronization in his tone, only concern. "Think of the cub," he chides lightly, pulling away from her caressing touch and nudging her ever so gently back inside with a tap from his colossal head. "Get yourself indoors this instant," he finishes, sounding like an lenient father…a loving partner…a concerned friend…anything but a huge wolf-beast with wind-huffing superpowers that could clear a city block of aggressive ignited foes with a single deep breath.

A leash, Donna had once thought, for a willful cur. No, a full harness…or more appropriately a noose; for death, it seemed would be the only way this fearsome creature would ever escape from the kind clutches of his mistress. Donna sees…and cannot believe she sees…tenderness, in those predatory eyes. 'Love,' she thinks, 'Go figure,' and finds her gaze irrevocably drawn to where she had last seen the Doctor.

She catches him looking back over his shoulder at the sweet domestic scene being played out before them. Sees him watch the terrible brute, the bringer of the windstorm, the unstoppable force of nature, bend its will to needs of its beloved. Sees the haunted look in his chocolate brown eyes, and sees it for what it is.

Recognition.


	21. Chapter 21

"So," he asks her, before she can begin on her own, "What did Rose do next?" He cannot help but admit to being insanely curious. What would she do, trapped far from her beloved Djinn in a parallel world; tied down at last to one time and place?

"She lived, my Lord," his dove shrugs. "She got up in the morning, went to work for Torchwood, saved the world yet another day then went back home to her parents' mansion for dinner and bed. It wasn't a particularly _fantastic_ life," she almost sneers at that, "Not from Rose's point of view anyway, but it was a life. Many would have considered it a very good life. She had her family…a roof over her head…friends and a great job, but Rose couldn't quite shake the feeling there was something…missing."

"The Djinn," he clarifies.

"Yes," she sighs, then amends, "Or maybe it was the traveling or the Blue Box that she missed. Maybe it was the aliens or the different time periods or the stars themselves." She lifts her palms before her in a helpless gesture. "Rose lived a life for nineteen years before she ever met the Djinn, and for all the problems she'd had…for all she and her mother had to struggle…it had been a good life, too. A happy life. A life full of love and chips and she had never asked for more, never expected more."

She stops, and shifts her seat, appearing uncomfortable. He finishes for her, "But now having seen what her life could truly be, Rose did not desire to go back to the way things had been before."

She nods, soberly, a sheepish attitude still obviously weighing upon her shoulders. "She was no longer willing to settle for _just_ a good life. For _just_ striving to be everything that Rose Tyler, former shop girl and council dweller, could expect to be. She wasn't willing to be _just_ Defender of the Earth. She wanted the universe, and no mere planet would ever be enough to satisfy her again." She looks up at him through lowered lashes. "Is that greedy?" she asks, "To want more than the whole world could give you?"

"No my dove," he replies, "I would say it was a fairly natural reaction."

She nods again, this time with greater confidence. "Rose couldn't sit still; couldn't find anything to fill the great gaping hole in her existence. She made a promise to herself that she would find a way back to her own universe…back to the Djinn. Or else she'd die trying. At least, if she did, she'd know she'd spent what remained of her insignificant human lifespan trying to achieve something better than herself. Reaching for the stars, as it were."

"She convinced her father to invest some of his fortune into research on inter-dimensional travel. She hand-picked a team of genius scientists from around the globe and brought them to work for her father's company. She made sure they were provided with all of the funding they could ever wish for and told them to shoot for the moon." She smiles wistfully. "She shouldn't have been so surprised when they presented her with a cannon."

"A cannon!" he interjects. He has great respect for artillery, and for the miniature versions thereof known as 'firearms'. Time and again he has attempted to trade for such items with neighboring nations, but it seems there are none to be had in this world. Those few decrepit pieces which still remained, those obtained from far off lands before the great wars, were no longer worth the iron and brass they were molded from, and regardless, their possessive owners could never be convinced to relinquish them.

"A dimensional cannon," she asserts, with wide eyes and a false seriousness to her tone. He feels the edge of his mouth twitch in response. "It was designed to project people across inter-dimensional horizons." She rubs subconsciously at her left wrist, as if remembering something that once chafed there. "The problem was, it wasn't particularly easy to aim."

"Not unlike a real cannon then," he comments.

"Yes. You could point it in a general direction…narrow down the possibilities from billions to the few thousand worlds most similar to the origin point…but where the traveler eventually landed…" She shakes her head, "No one could really know. You might end up in a world much like your own, but in which the air had become toxic from wars or pollution. Or maybe you'd end up somewhere all the world's great masses of ice had melted and you're treading water in the middle of some endless ocean. There was no way of predicting what you might run into."

"That seems a dangerous proposition," he notes.

"It was," she agrees, "But Rose was willing to take that chance." And of course she would be. She was a woman in love, it didn't need saying. "Pete wanted to try it on chimpanzees and the like first, but Rose was impatient. She refused to wait for safety tests. She had the scientists make her a portable prototype and dragged everyone into the room with the great white wall where she'd come through before. She figured the barriers between the worlds would be especially thin there, and hopefully the cannon would pick the alternate universe that was…well…closest to the surface so to speak. Everyone in Torchwood was watching, via magic picture boxes, of course, in case something went horribly wrong." She smiles crookedly and her own daring. "Rose never blinked, she just reached down and turned the dial on the device and…"

"And?" he prompts breathlessly.

"And she found out that the Dimensional Cannon was very aptly named." She shakes her head ruefully. "Rose had always assumed that it would work much like the jumping devices her father and Mickey used during the prior invasion; that she would just suddenly be in another place…a bit disoriented, but no worse for wear. But the cannon was much more…violent. Rose found herself literally rocketed between the universes and she came out stumbling and off balance on the other end."

He waits with bated breath as she pauses dramatically. "She ended up in the back alley of a city, not unlike the one she had come from. And, incidentally, not all that unlike the one she had grown up in. Automatically, her eyes turned towards the skies, but no black balloon forms could be seen. Excited almost beyond measure, she made her way out to the main roadway. The surrounding streets were in chaos. Law enforcement officials and emergency doctors and media people were everywhere. There were barricades blocking people from entering the streets, and they were crowded with onlookers. Rose looked up and down trying to figure out what was going on. She asked a passing man what had happened and got some garbled response about little, white fat monsters."

"Little and large?" he interjects with curiosity.

"No." Her mouth quirks. "Apparently they were small creatures that were actually made of fat. Human fat." He blinks at her. "I told you it was garbled."

"Anyhow," she closes her eyes, bringing the memory into full focus. "The cannon was set to return her automatically after 5 minutes for this first journey. Pete wouldn't agree to any longer, he was that scared for Rose's welfare. So Rose knew she didn't have much longer to determine whether or not this was her original home…her proper universe. It occurred to her that if little fat monsters were invading her home then the Djinn would certainly be there doing something about it! But she didn't see him anywhere. No brown suit. No blue box. No magic screwdriver. She was about to flag down an official and try to get a better explanation, when some strange woman ran up and started talking nonsense about rubbish bins and the like. Then she just ran off without another word. Rose knew she was out of time. She slunk sadly back into the shadows of the alley where she had come from. The Djinn wasn't there, and if it were her Earth, he certainly would have been. The dimensional cannon activated and she soon found herself back in the great white room which had been the scene of so much sorrow in the past."

She sighs, her brown eyes fluttering open. "Rose wasn't deterred by her near miss. She was determined to try it again. So, she had the scientists make some small adjustments, and prepared herself again for a leap into another life. This time, when the device activated, she felt herself hurtled even more violently through the multi-verse. Blasting into existence under a blue sky flushed with bright sunlight, she immediately fell to the ground, and came up hard striking the harsh surface of a broken brick path."

"Was she hurt?" he asks with real concern.

"No," she says, "But the cannon was. It got slammed into the road and started sparking right away. Rose ripped it off her wrist, but she still got a few contact burns from it. She was scraped and bruised too, but worst of all, wherever she had landed looked absolutely nothing like her home. Not the one she came from originally and not the one with the great black balloons. She was, for all she could tell, in the middle of a deep, dense forest. Way deeper and denser than any she'd ever seen on a country field trip back home. It was more like some of the strange, otherwordly places the Djinn had taken her to. She couldn't see anything that even hinted at civilization, except for the road that is, and even that looked ancient. It was made of this faded yellow stone that had been worn away by centuries of passage and the elements. Weeds, and even some small, scraggly trees, poked up between the bricks. It looked as if no one had passed that way in ages."

"Rose waited around for the cannon mechanism to stop sparking. She was ready to get back to the scientists and tell them that whatever they'd done to alter the coordinates, it'd gone horribly wrong. But when she tried to use the cannon, all it did was spark some more. She tried a few times, but it wouldn't work. Finally, she realized she wasn't getting anywhere just sitting on an abandoned path in the middle of a primeval forest, so she grabbed the dimensional cannon and started walking. She chose to go left because, well, the path looked a little friendlier in that direction. She hoped she'd stumble upon a village or something soon, and even if the people there couldn't lend her tools to work on the cannon, at least they could maybe offer her a little food or a roof over her head. She'd brought along some money, and some small jewels and gold coins as well, just in case something like this happened."

His dove shifts her position so that the pillow upon which she has perched can be seen to flash an emerald green between the bright scarlet leggings she wears. It had been something of a coup in his household, this change of dress. The royal clothier nearly keeled over in apoplexy hearing that she desired _trousers_. He had had been encouraged to reluctantly consent. However, he insisted upon making them of the finest silk that waved in even the slightest of breezes.

His dove owns several pairs now and proclaims them the most comfortable outfit she has ever worn. Once the other ladies got over the shock of seeing a woman in their midst dressed as a man, they had been intrigued. He has seen several palace women similarly clothed since. Apparently, if the sultan's intended was allowed such accoutrement, then they could see no reason why such allowances would not be extended to themselves. As yet, he has kept silent on the matter. Fashion is fashion, and no concern of his. Let them wear their skirts split up the middle and ride their docile mares with one leg on each side if they so desire. It is no great matter.

"Rose walked and walked, but there didn't seem to be any end to the stupid road. Finally, she came to a clearing in the woods. There was a broken down old cabin, with a thatch roof that had mostly caved in. It was getting dark, and Rose figured the cabin was better than sleeping out under the stars. So she went inside, knocking politely in case anyone actually still lived there, but it was empty and ruined inside. It had been a small house once. There was still a fireplace off to one side in a tiny kitchen, the chimney of which was fairly intact. Rose had come prepared with an emergency kit, and with some fire sticks she lit a warm blaze. There was a bed, but it was so old and moldy that Rose didn't trust it; and besides, she would have felt odd sleeping in some stranger's bed. There was also a work bench with a whole slew of tools. Most were rusted, with their wooden handles decaying, but she managed to find something a little like a screwdriver. She pried the cannon device open and fiddled around inside. She didn't really know what she was doing, but she saw some of the wires had come loose and she made a guess as to where to put them back in place. She figured she'd stay in the cabin through the night and try it again in the morning."

"She huddled up by the fireplace and attempted to make herself as comfortable as she could on the cold stone floor. She'd tried the room's one rickety chair, but it had disintegrated the instant she sat upon it. It was a rough night." He sees her shudder, despite the warmth of the evening. "At one point she heard this noise…she couldn't figure out what it was but it just kept getting louder and louder. It was rhythmic, like a heartbeat. She didn't know why but the sound scared her. It sounded…unnatural." She shakes her head and blinks the clouds from her eyes. "Suddenly, Rose realized that whatever it was, it was coming down the road towards her. She started looking around frantically for something to douse the fire with. She knew there wasn't any water because she had looked before and found the well dry, but the blankets on the bed were all damp from the forest air. They nearly fell apart in her hands as she snatched them off the bed, but they managed to stay together long enough for her to lay them over the fire. It hissed and smoked, and fairly quickly, went out."

"Rose held her breath," she goes on, crouching down and imitating how Rose would have hid in her little hovel. "And the noise got louder and louder, until it was just outside the cabin door." His heart pounds in his chest. When had she learned to so artfully accentuate her tales? "Then it kept going and going, and Rose breathed a little easier, knowing that, whatever it was, it had decided the cabin was unremarkable and passed on by." She takes a deep breath, again mimicking her heroine. "Rose crept toward the cabin's one window and peaked out over the sill." Her eyes widen, as if she is seeing the sight for the first time herself. "It was an army," she whispers. "Row upon row of armed men. They carried lanterns that glowed green, not the yellow and orange of regular fire, and in the strange light Rose could see their faces."

"And?" he asks, realizing only afterwards that he is leaning as far forward as his chair allows and whispering the same as she.

"They were made of wood. She could see the bark markings like wavy tattoos across their cheeks and foreheads. That's what was so strange about the sound she'd been hearing. It was the sound of hundreds of wooden boots striking the broken brick path outside." She shudders again, this time with feeling, and continues. "That wasn't all. Rose kept watching, and the wooden soldiers they were followed by…by things." She wrinkles her nose. "Rose would have said they were aliens, but they didn't look like any aliens she'd ever seen before. They were green, doubly green in that odd light from the lanterns, and their skin gleamed…as if it were slimy."

"Eventually, the army disappeared, the sound of their footsteps sinking away into the forest, and Rose went back to her place next to the fire. She was too afraid to light it again, though. What if another regiment came by, or if there were any stragglers? No, she just curled in on herself and tried to get some fitful sleep."

She pauses and stretches, not lifting her arms, but pulling her shoulders back in a way that accentuates her long neck and brings to prominence certain assets otherwise concealed behind her loose fitting red blouse with its intricate gold embroidery work. She rolls her head, and he can imagine that this is how she looks when she awakes; strong and beautiful, and without a care as to whatever anyone else thinks of her. "The next morning Rose slipped back onto the road, and it was just as empty as it had been the afternoon before. She was tired and hungry and thirsty, and she just wanted to go home. At that point, she wasn't willing to argue over where her real home might exactly be, so she clipped the dimensional cannon onto her wrist and turned it on."

She pauses, and this time he knows it is solely for effect. "She didn't get home," she explains blithely, and she sounds strangely disappointed by the fact. "Not either home, and this time she found herself launched into the middle of a huge open field." She tosses her head as if to say, nothing better than being randomly sling-shot through a random collection of universes could really be expected at that point. "At least she knew to cradle the cannon against her chest this time so it didn't get hurt."

"Did Rose?" he asks again.

"Did Rose what?" she replies, staring at him curiously.

"Get hurt?"

"Oh, no," her eyes widen in understanding, and a smile stretches across her face. "No, as you'd expect a field is a lot more comfortable place to land than a brick road. But, once again, she seemed to be in the middle of nowhere." She closes her eyes briefly, as she composes the scene in her mind. "The fields were full of grass and clover, but the whole countryside looked blocky, like farmers' crops sometimes appear when you see them from the air."

"My dove," he admonishes with a laugh, "Besides yourself, there are not too many in my kingdom to have seen much of anything from the air."

She is smiling with her tongue, the way she does. It is matched in radiance only by the gleam of her eyes. "You are no doubt right my Lord," she teases in response, "Perhaps I should have said it appeared like a chessboard. Do they have those here? Does my Lord play?"

"Yes my dove," he answers, trying to imagine great swathes of lawn in alternating blocks of green and darker green. Such things would be impossible within the arid desert of his own lands. "My teachers overlooked no form of warfare in my training, not even that which is played out upon a stone board with marble men."

She nods. "It was strange, for though Rose could see a dark line on the horizon, like a span of trees at the edge of a great wood, whenever she walked towards it, it seemed to stay the same distance away. She kept walking, and eventually even started running, but she couldn't get any closer. It was…odd to say the least." A confused look passes across her features and her head tips to the side in silent wonder. "The whole time she was there, walking and running and trying to get to the forest, it was almost like she was swimming through water. Nothing seemed to be moving at the right speed, as if time had no meaning."

"Like in a dream?" he says, remembering some of his own vexing nighttime adventures.

"Yes," she asserts, clearly pleased at his description. "It was as though nothing were real. Not the fields or the forest…or Rose. It was all a dream, and eventually she gave up pursuing the horizon and just trudged on, keeping the forest in front of her as always. It was then, when she finally gave up trying," she says, looking up at him with an amusedly arched eyebrow, "That Rose came upon the train tracks."

He finds himself leaning forward again in interest, and resting his chin upon a cupped palm supported by his knee. She has explained at length to him about "trains". They are much like the horseless wagons that apparently fill her world in that they move under their own power, except that they cannot deviate from the metal paths laid out for them. He has had his scholars working on a model based upon her descriptions ever since she first mentioned them, but as yet, they had not been able to replicate the "internal combustion engine" she always referred to. His dove is many things, but mechanically inclined is not one of them. When he asked her to advise his magi she had only said that such machines were "Mickey's thing" and that she would be utterly useless to them.

"They seemed to come out of nowhere and she actually tripped over them before she caught sight of them. She figured following the tracks was a better idea than chasing after an ever escaping forest, so she turned left again and continued her trek. She walked until the sun went down behind her and eventually found herself in a mix of wood and field. The place almost looked like the groomed lawns of some huge country estate, complete with little patches of blooming flowers nestled in well tended circles about some of the larger trees. What one might call a park in her own world. There was a little rock niche in one place, with a trickle of water running out of it. Rose was parched and so thankful for the little pool and spring. She drank until she couldn't hold any more and filled her canteen. By this time it was getting dark again, and Rose was hoping to find some tree with low hanging branches or the like where she could spend the night relatively dry. Luckily she came upon a house."

"It seemed just like a normal house. There was a parlor with uncomfortable chairs and a mahogany coffee table. There were woven rugs on the floor, musty, but apparently none the worse for wear. The house was very silent, as if it was holding its breath. Or more accurately," she amended, "It felt as though no one had ever taken a breath inside of it."

"Rose wandered carefully around the plush sitting room, trying not to touch any of the nice things, in case someone actually did live there." Her look turns suddenly pensive. "There was a whole wall covered in bookshelves. They were fancy, leather bond volumes without titles on the spines." She smiled, just an upward twitch of the corners of her mouth. "Rose had cultivated a certain…fondness…for books during her time traveling with the Djinn. She'd never had any use for them before she started sight-seeing the universe, but the Djinn had this great library in the Blue Box, and he seemed to take such joy in reading himself." She gave a tinkling laugh. "She had insisted he pick out some of his favorite stories for her and she diligently read them. Afterwards, they would discuss the finer points of the plots and sometimes he would take her to the times and places where they were set. Sometimes, he would even read to her, curled up on a comfy couch before a roaring fire. It was…" Her eyes grow misty and distant, "It was how Rose first learned to love reading…to love stories."

She shakes herself out of her reverie. "There was a large fireplace in the empty parlor and, well, I guess Rose just wanted to relive some of those memories she had made with the Djinn. She ran her hands along the soft covers of the books until she found one that felt right under her fingertips. She pulled it from the shelves and sat down on the old horse-hair love-seat. Opening the frail pages, she inhaled the smell of fresh ink on parchment." His dove breathes in deeply, in mimicry of the woman in her tale. "It seemed like no one had ever opened it before."

She shifts on her pillow, pulling her legs out from beneath her and curling them next to her on the carpet. She leans down on her opposite hand, half in repose. "Now this is the really strange part: When Rose opened the book she couldn't read the writing." She holds up her free hand to stave off his questions. "It wasn't in another language, it was in English. Only," she says, smiling knowingly, "It was written backwards."

"Backwards?" he asks, surprised. "Whatever would be the point of printing such a tome?"

She shrugs the shoulder not engaged in supporting her. "They were all like that, Rose checked. Every last volume, written backwards. There was a large mirror arranged over the fireplace and Rose held one of the books up to it so she could read it. It was a book of verses. Very…weird verses."

She looks up towards the window. It is dark behind the curtains, a slight wind brushing them away from the casement. She has just started her telling and cannot expect it to be morning yet. He wonders why her gaze has wandered. "Rose suddenly got a crazy idea. She'd had a lot of practice with crazy ideas, living with the Djinn as long as she had, and she'd gotten just as much practice following through with them. So, she set the book down and pulled one of the chairs over to the mantelpiece. She climbed on top of it and rested her palms flat against to cool glass. She tried thinking of the mirror as a…a window, though a window into what she would have been hard pressed to say. She watcher her mirror image put its hands up to meet hers. It was smiling." She pauses. "Rose wasn't smiling," she says darkly. "She pushed against the smooth surface, and felt it give under her hands. It was as insubstantial as smoke, and Rose found her weight quickly overbalanced. She tumbled through the mirror to the other side and fell to the floor with a crash."

Languidly, his dove rolls her head toward him and smiles. Her skin is like polished marble in the flickering glow of the candles. He remembers his first impressions of her, of her white and fragile beauty. She has grown more lovely with each passing night he has known her, yet he no longer thinks of her as fragile. How could he? No, she was no porcelain statuette to be shattered with a careless swipe to the floor. "The room was exactly the same as the one she just left. Except, reversed, of course. She picked a book off of the corresponding shelves and it was printed normally."

"She fell through to a mirror world?" he asks in wonder.

"Perhaps." She straightens, and tucks her silk clad legs beneath herself again. "Or perhaps she had begun her trek in a mirror world, and only after stepping through the looking-glass was she returned to reality." She shakes her head and gives a short laugh, a single breath of air forced through nose and mouth alike. "Regardless, Rose felt as though she'd experienced more than enough mysteries for one day. She curled up on the settee and drifted to sleep."

She reaches forward to pick up a morsel of food from the feast laid out between them. He notes absently that it is a dish he has yet to sample from. It occurs to him that her premature action should perturb him, but for the life of him, he cannot think why. He watches intently as she pops the sweet into her mouth, her tongue curling around it behind her closed, rose pink lips. "That night," she says, after allowing the treat to dissolve into its juices, "Rose dreamed. She dreamed of all the stories her mother used to tell her before bed every night when she was a little girl. She dreamed of the books the Djinn would read aloud to her, while she lay with her sock covered feet resting in his lap. She dreamed, too, of all the adventures she had with the Djinn, and she was saddened to think that no one would ever hear that particular saga. And when she awoke to light pouring in through the windows and across the patterned cushions of the couch where she lay, she thought back over all those stories, remembering…and a thought came to her."

"What, my dove?" he smiles indulgently. "What miraculous understanding occurred to the valiant Rose?"

She smiles, and it is the light of every morning he has ever known her. The hope of a new day dawning. The radiance of a mind illuminated by possibilities it never before conceived.

"She thought, my Lord, what if all those other fables were as true as her own?'"


	22. Chapter 22

He finds a replacement for his ruined blue suit jacket in the wardrobe room and as he's straightening his tie and evaluating his appearance in the looking glass, she berates him. "Should be wearin' black." His reflection in the mirror looks back at her over his shoulder and arches an eyebrow. "It's a funereal," she says, by way of explanation.

"On some planets," he comments, flipping the silk band over itself one final time and tucking it into a knot, "Blue is the color of mourning." His reflection gives her another meaningful glance, and she finds she has nothing more to say.

It's not a very traditional funeral anyway. There's no graveyard, no headstones, no minister to perform the ceremony. There's just Cole saying a few words and the dead brought in on sheet covered stretchers and dumped into the witching well. Fly had explained it to her; there was too much dangerous magic inherent in a Fable, even deceased, and this was their way of keeping things safe. Keeping the mundys safe, she knows he means, and she appreciates their sacrifice and his discretion.

There are tears, though, that much is the same as a regular wake. The large female bear sobs unhaltingly throughout, clinging to her husband's fur and burying her face in his shoulder. The Doctor had managed to find and help a number of the defenders thought lost in the blaze towards the end of battle, but he'd been to late for the young cub who had made a trio of their family. Donna thinks too that she sees the Prince's eyes go watery as the little police people and their faithful mouse mounts are tipped from a T.V. tray into the black.

One of the dead inspires more vehemence in the mourners than sadness. It is the body of Baba Yaga, the one the Fable folk had known as Red Riding Hood. The woman who started this whole mess. The woman whose red hair and strange, evasive manner had made everyone wary when first meeting Donna and the Doctor. There is some argument over the correct disposal of her remains. It seems the surviving Fables don't want their sworn enemy enshrined with their fallen loved ones. Donna understands. She wouldn't want that woman's body down in that god-forsaken hole with her Gramps or her mum.

Well, maybe her mum.

She turns to see what the Doctor thinks of this development, but he's not looking at the body. He's looking over the sheet shrouded form to where Bigby stands helping to balance the stretcher on the other side. His nose wrinkles slightly, like it does when he's examining something that just doesn't make sense. He stares hard a Bigby, and gets an impassive look in return. Well, what did he expect? The two of them could have a race for most enigmatic.

After all is said and done, Donna accosts Rose Red. She is staring blankly at the open hole of the well like so many others. Donna hasn't known Rose long, but she's known her long enough to recognize one thing: Rose had something of a _thing _for the big man named Weyland, who had gone down like a hero in the middle of the fighting…just like she had something of a thing, too, for the young man in blue who was always following Snow around. It wasn't serious, and it wasn't definite, but it was something, and it was real. And now one of them was lying at the bottom of a well so deep his body would never be seen by the world of the living again. The other wasn't much better off.

"Hey," Donna says, arranging herself at Rose's shoulder. "You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah," she answers, wiping at her eyes, "Yeah, of course, it's just…"

'It's hard,' Donna finishes in her own mind, not needing Rose to say it aloud.

"We won," Rose says instead, and sounds vaguely surprised at the fact. "Why….why doesn't it feel like it?" For all that she is hundreds of years Donna's senior, she looks like a little girl, and Donna pulls her into her arms. Rose drops her head to Donna's shoulder and their hair tangles together at the base of Donna's neck. Red, and slightly darker red; and which is which becomes difficult to tell. Donna wants to tell her that there are other fish in the sea, other chances, that there is so much life left ahead of her….and it's all true. Donna knows it, and Rose knows it, and it doesn't change the fact that a good man died fighting for a cause he believed in and protecting those he loved and it should never, _never_ have happened.

"You won't forget us, right?" Rose asks, still crying quietly into Donna's blouse. "You won't just…run off to the stars and forget we even exist back down here on Earth."

"No," Donna says pushing back against Rose and bringing their eyes in line. "I could never do that." She smiles then, a Doctorish thought coming to her. "You know, for all I just met you, I've known you people longer than pretty much any friend I've ever had." Rose Red blinks at her in confusion. "Snow White, Sleeping Beauty… princes and heroes and fiends. The stuff of legend. You're the ones who kept the monsters under my bed at bay on dark nights." Rose gives a wry smile, understanding at last. "And now that I know monsters are real, now that I'm out among them every day," she shakes her head, thinking of giant wasps and the Ood and people; regular, bad, human people, "I need friends like you more than ever."

Rose Red smiles in response. It's much like the first smile Donna had seen on her face. The playful one. The adventurous one. "I can use friends like you too. World would be a much better place if we redheads were in charge." Donna hums her agreement, seeing her watch Boy Blue exiting the dungeon in a wheelchair steered by his friend Flycatcher. "As it is," she continues absently, "It's pretty much all we can do to keep everyone else we care about from destroying themselves." With an apologetic look in her eyes, Rose lets go of Donna, and races after the retreating pair and up to the world above. Donna understands her abrupt departure.

'If they ever have a little girl,' Donna thinks, 'They can call her Violet.'

The Doctor is still standing by the witching well, looking lost. Unlike the other remaining mourners, he's not staring at its circular maw. Rather, he is gazing with a single minded intensity at something cupped in his hand. Donna approaches him on silent feet. He doesn't make a move when she comes alongside of him and glances over his arm at the familiar blue object. When it becomes clear after several moments that he's not going to speak, she decides to start the conversation herself.

"Thought you kept that on a chain," she says companionably.

A quick glance and then down again. "It's not mine," he says tonelessly.

Immediately her hand slaps to her hip, and only afterwards does she remember she's put on a skirt for this event and doesn't have pockets. She shifts her pocketbook clumsily into her left hand and flips the catch. A moment's digging brings up her own key, still clipped to her lucky rabbit's foot. 'Not so lucky for the rabbit,' the Doctor's voice echoes in her mind. Replacing it in her purse, she gazes up at the still man beside her. He is looking at the well now. "Whose is it then?" she asks.

"Dunno," he answers, tossing the object lightly into the air. It flickers as it tumbles, reflecting the low light of candles. He catches it in a fist. "Not who I thought," he finishes, and she knows from his glaring omission of any identification, that he is talking about Rose. His Rose, not the perky redhead who'd become nearly like a sister to her in so short a time. The one that was lost. The Doctor negligently flips the key into the air once again. This time when he catches it, it is with open fingers, as if he is only half determined not to let it fall.

Donna cannot see future possibilities. She's never wished to. She knows the Doctor can, and she knows the pain it causes him. He talks about it sometimes, in a vague way. She had learned early on in their relationship not to antagonize him by asking, 'Come on, what's the worst that could happen?' The answer had taken a sit down and several full cups of tea to tell. But, every once and a while, she has an instinct. About people. About situations. About what is going to happen. And right at this moment she is having an instinct about the key which is so clear it's almost like seeing a moving picture of the potentiality playing itself out in front of her retinas. She sees it in black and white; an old, scratchy-filmed silent movie. Sees the Doctor flip the key a third time in an arc that takes it over the lip of the well to plummet, twirling, into its dark depths.

Before he can do it - before he can think to do it – she takes his hand. It is much larger than hers, especially curled as it is about its metal core, and her fingers look tiny wrapped around his longer, thicker ones. His hand is cold. His hands are always cold. He looks at their joined hands, looks at her, and a question forms on his face. "Maybe," she says, before he can ask her what she's doing, "Maybe, we should just…hold on to it."

He looks about to protest, but stops himself. Instead, he nods, and his hand slips from beneath hers to bury itself in his trousers pocket. "You ready to go?" he asks, and Donna is almost, but not quite, sure she detects a certain roughness in his voice.

"Yeah," she says, a bit of melancholy slipping into her own speech. "Anyone you want to say goodbye to before we take off?" She tries to interject some excitement into her question; another day, another madcap adventure through time and space awaiting them. The thought is almost enough to brighten their gloomy surroundings.

"Like who?" he sneers sarcastically.

"Oh, come off it," she says, smacking him on the arm and turning to leave. "You like him, I know. Can't hide anything from your best mate."

She doesn't turn around. Knows if she does she'll find him pondering her words with a look of indignation. Knows what decision he'll come to in the end. Knows she'll need a change before they go off exploring some distant world. Knows he'll find his way back to the TARDIS eventually and then…

Well, then everything will go back to normal, won't it?

~?~?~?~?~?~?~?~?~

He found the sheriff on the street.

When he and Donna had first ambled down this sidewalk, it had been a vibrant thoroughfare packed with open shops and people bustling everywhere. Now it was in ruins. The once colorful neighborhood was covered in blown ash and cement dust; reduced to varying shades of grey in a depressing reverse _Wizard of Oz._ Charred pieces of paper fluttered aimlessly down alleys where kids had ridden their skateboards just days before. Blue barrels were stacked alongside packed trashcans on corners. Signs hung crookedly from single hardy nails. Storefront picture glass lay shattered on the ground while apron-clad owners used push-brooms to clear their doorways of stray shards. People passed by quickly, heads down, as if afraid to look up and acknowledge the destruction surrounding them.

It was like Dresden after the bombing, and the Doctor should know.

The sheriff was surveying the scene, keeping one eye on a team of Fables rolling barrels from the dismantled barricades to where the local sanitation department would pick them up and dispose of them. He didn't look the Doctor's way as he approached, but there was a definite shift in his stance that indicated he knew the Time Lord was nearby. When the Doctor was mere feet away, and he couldn't pretend to ignore him any longer, he turned fierce, predatory eyes upon him. "You still here?" he grumbled.

The Doctor's eyes narrowed at his form of greeting. "Had to stay for the memorial service," he responded coldly. Bigby turned back to watch the barrel rollers and the Doctor shoved his hands into his cavernous coat pockets. "So," he continued, affecting a disinterest he didn't feel, "You interred that Baba Yaga person in the well with your friends."

The sheriff's eyes snapped back to his. "Yes."

"Seems a bit odd, doesn't it," the Doctor pointed out annoyingly, "Entombing your direst enemy with your greatest heroes. I mean, I'm all for economy, but that just seems a bit…cold…don't you think?"

"And what exactly, Doctor, would you have done?" It was a good question, and an even better way of avoiding the Doctor's more rhetorical one.

"Well," he said, making the word a good two syllables longer than was absolutely necessary, "If it were me, I would have tried to take her alive. Kept her around for questioning about her boss." He rocked back on his heels and turned his gaze skyward. "'Course, the other Fables might have had a problem with that; me keeping some powerfully evil witch woman in town. No offense, but those 'enchanted' handcuffs of yours aren't worth the Emerald City silver they're apparently minted from." He brought his eyes down from the heavens to meet the sheriff's emotionless stare.

"Not a bad plan," Bigby stated dryly. "How would you have kept her hidden from them?"

"By killing her," the Doctor deadpanned. "Symbolically of course."

Bigby looked away again. "Nothing comes out of the witching well," he said. "At least, not yet." He turned back in time to see the Doctor blanch at his words.

"Can I ask you a question?" the Doctor asked in an entirely different tone from the one he'd been using thus far.

"Do I have choice?"

The Doctor answered with a steady silence until Bigby, rolling his eyes, waved a hand for him to continue.

"What was with the blood?"

Bigby's eyes narrowed. "I don't know what you're talking about," he responded, after a moment's pause.

"The blood. In the vials. You took some from both me and Donna, what was it for?"

"Identification," he replied, his eyes flicking nervously up and down the street, before returning uncomfortably to the Doctor's face. He was met with a severely raised eyebrow and a disbelieving countenance. Sighing, he leaned back against the brick wall behind him. Black burn marks marred its surface where flames had licked at it during the battle. "The minions of the Adversary," he said, and it sounded like a concession for him to say anything at all, "Don't have blood like ours."

"From what I saw they don't have much blood at all," the Doctor commented. "Sort of made of wood weren't they?"

"No," Bigby replied briskly, "He's never done that before – used wooden soldiers – not in my memory anyway. Before it was all ogres and goblins and humans that…well…" He shook his head in dismay. "They weren't quite human, that's for certain."

"So…" the Doctor drew the word out ponderously, "They all had different blood. What, was it green or something? Have genetic markers of evil?"

Suddenly, Bigby's stared hard, and the Doctor could feel those dark eyes burning holes right through his jacket to the skin beneath. "It tastes different," he asserted, with great malice.

"Oh?" the Doctor queried brightly, before putting the man's words to thought. "Oohh," he added a moment later, with a cringe. He pulled his lips back form his teeth and stuck his tongue partly out in disgust. "Oh that's just…just…" Putting yet more thought into it, he revised his opinion again. "Actually, it reminds me of something I did once. Saved the world with a quick lick of a blood sample. A positive. Not the most common type and – hang on!" He managed to reverse his reactions 180 degrees for yet a fourth time in a matter of seconds. "My blood shouldn't taste anything like a human's!"

"It doesn't," Bigby sniffed and tossed his head negligently. "If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm pretty used to non-human. What it doesn't taste, is _wrong_." He said the last word as if it had specific meaning beyond that which the dictionary would ordinarily assign to it. As if this sort of 'wrong' went above and beyond the call of duty of just not being right, to become something despicable and…unclean.

The Doctor suddenly, and morbidly, found himself wondering what a Dalek's blood would taste like.

"I should get back to the office," Bigby mentioned quietly, as if it were an afterthought. "Snow probably needs me for something."

"Yeah, well," the Doctor mumbled, glancing at a wrist that did not, and never would, bear a watch, "I should go find my mate before she wanders off and gets us into even more trouble."

"Mate?" Bigby asked, looking incredulous.

"Ah, uh, no," the Doctor took an involuntary step back, and his hand fled nervously to the back of his neck. "Not…not like that…umm..." He considered stuttering further. Considered making a laughing reference to Donna's identical confusion over that very same term. Considered explaining British idiom until he was blue in the face and the sheriff was visibly annoyed. Cursed for the millionth time the fate which had decided he would sound like a Londoner this time around. Couldn't, for all the universe, curse the reason. "No, we're not-" he started instead.

"No," Bigby agreed blithely, "You're not."

"Ah," said the Doctor, as if that settled things, his remaining confusion notwithstanding.

Bigby slipped his hand into a pocket of his long coat and pulled out the cigarette pack and lighter secreted there. In a moment, his cupped hands removed themselves from his face to reveal the shaking orange tip of a butt held tight between his teeth. "You don't smell right," he explained around a sharp puff of blue smoke, "Together that is."

"Ah," the Doctor said again, comprehending a bit better this time.

"But then," the man turned towards him, removing the butt momentarily from his mouth, "You already knew that."

"I did?" replied the Doctor, sounding actually curious.

Bigby nodded. "Whatever else you may be, Doctor, you're a predator." The cigarette returned to its former home and Bigby continued his explanation. "We recognize our own."

"Do we?" the Doctor answered in a dead tone, not bothering to deny the man's accusations.

Bigby's eyes trailed up the corner of the building opposite them, past the spider web of fire escapes and the open widows with charred curtains swinging in the breeze, to the clear blue sky above. "The scent, the eyes, even the way you carry yourself. You can't disguise it." He shook his head knowingly. "You always know another wolf when they come padding around your turf, even if they don't look the part."

A short blonde woman with a tiny waist and an unconscious grace to the sway of her hips ambled past in heels that looked far too expensive and impractical for any sort of running. Something in her manner, though, told the Doctor that they wouldn't slow her down. They fit her too well, her manner as well as her feet. Bigby's eyes followed her with consideration, but not the way they followed Snow - and yes, the Doctor had noticed. How could he not? It was all over him, all over the two of them. In every look, every touch, every scent of poorly controlled pheromones wafting upon the air. They matched. They fit. No, he couldn't help thinking, _this_ blonde was a cat. A huntress, yes, but of the feline persuasion, and Bigby would have no interest going that way. Whatever the other differences between them might be, the Doctor wasn't too fond of cats either.

He much preferred wolves.

"I think," the Doctor said, slowly drawing out every word of the sentence as if each were a separate pain he'd like to avoid, "You may just be right about that."

Silence descended between the two of them then. Standing stock still against the wall as the rest of the world rolled by, they appeared almost invisible. Their dark eyes scanned the crowds with casual perception. Their nearly identical long coats swayed lightly in the breeze coasting down the street. No one stopped to acknowledge the two silent watchers. They were too wrapped up in timetables and wristwatches, in the comings and goings of their own little lives. Cocooned in the jubilant relief from their recent fight, no one seemed to notice two of the battle's most prominent heroes. Too busy living to look up from the pockmarked sidewalk before themselves to appreciate the quiet, observing presence of the eternals in their midst. "Did we just have a heart-to-heart?" the Doctor asked suddenly, breaking the silence and splitting his question between impressed and surprised.

The two men's heads swiveled towards each other, as each appraised the other thoughtfully. "Nope," said Bigby, turning back to face the front.

"Nuh, uh," agreed the Doctor, doing the same.

"Good," Bigby nodded, taking a long drag off his cigarette, before flicking it to the ground and grinding it beneath his boot heel. Shifting his shoulders beneath his heavy coat, he extricated himself from his position against the wall, and without further word to the Doctor, turned and walked off towards the Woodlands, his shadow looming large in his wake.


	23. Chapter 23

"And while she was trying to explain to the two of them that there really wasn't any point in fighting and that they'd be much better off as friends, and that in fact it would all be put aright once the Stone of Scone was sent back to Edinburgh, a mob of townspeople carrying cake and cudgels attacked and started beating the poor beasts about the head. Both tucked their tails between their legs and took off, the lion heading in one direction and the unicorn cantering off in the other."

She rolls her eyes, and he smiles in response. "Rose figured there wasn't much more she could do at that point to foster a spirit of unification, so she reset the cannon device and jumped away. She soon found herself outside a quaint little farming village. There were a gaggle of peasant women running around trying to catch a whole slew of near feral cats and thrust them into sacks. Rose stopped to help them round up some of the kittens, and afterwards they begged her to stay for dinner as payment for her assistance. It turned out that all seven of them were all married to the same man and lived in a house that seemed much too small for everyone on the outside, but was actually fairly roomy and comfortable once you passed the threshold."

"Seven wives!" he exclaimed. It was certainly not unheard of, but he himself could never see having more than one. Wives were such trouble! And think of the issues of children and their inheritances. No, far better to have only one woman as head of your household and keep the rest as mistresses.

His dove nods her pretty head. "It was a bit strange, but I guess no more surprising than keeping several hundred cats in bags for no apparent reason. Rose spent the night with the eccentric family, and the next day they all waved her off down the road towards St. Ives. She walked until she was over the next hill and out of sight before she set the cannon to working yet again."

She goes quiet then, pensive. She is usually so free with her talk, so free in her manner now too, that he is surprised to see her reserve. She pulls herself up, sits straight-backed upon her heels, and folds her hands carefully in her lap. She takes a deep breath, but then seems to think better of her actions, and releases it in a slow sigh. He sees her lips move in what he thinks may be a silent prayer, and he suddenly wishes very much to know what, or whom, she prays for. "That is when," she starts, stops herself again, and finally looks him in the eye. "That is when Rose arrived in a place unlike any she had ever seen before. There was nothing but sand as far as her eyes could see, and the light glinting off the near white surface of the seemingly endless sea of rippling dunes before her was so bright she had to squint. It was hot, too, and dry. The sun hanging above her head was torturous."

He thinks he sees where this is going. Thinks he recognizes the origin of her earlier trepidation. Instinctively, he slips his hand into the folds of his robes and wraps fingers about the tiny object secreted within. He suspects, suddenly, that he might have need of it. "Faster than she could think clearly, she was surrounded by a large party of men on horseback. They all wore keffiyehs and long robes that covered their entire bodies. Their steeds were outfitted in fancy caparisons with golden bells and silken tassels hanging from every juncture of the bridle and every corner of the saddle. The horses' ears curled inwards like crescents and the men were talking rapidly with each other in a language that Rose did not know. The gestured wildly at her, and she got the distinct impression that they were talking about what to do with her. Right then, under the heat of the noonday sun, all she hoped was that they'd be willing to offer her some water from their hide canteens."

"What color were their caparisons?" he asks.

She smiles ruefully. "My Lord already knows the answer to that. The men were bedecked in the colors of my Lord's royal guard. They stripped Rose of all her loose possessions and tied her hands behind her with rough lashings. Then they tossed her up behind one of their saddles and rode quickly back to the city. Once there, she was thrown into the closest cell. Honestly, she was rather relieved to have all the bouncing and yanking and yelling stop. Being in a jail, at least, was something Rose was familiar with...and it was in the shade."

"For days Rose lounged in captivity. She ate the bread they slid through the bars for her, and thankfully drank the water they provided. Twice daily she was lead from her cell and into the bright light of day for exercise. He face went red from exposure to the harsh elements she wasn't used to. It peeled, leaving sensitive pinkish skin beneath. Finally, a man was sent to her who spoke her language. She tried to explain that she was just a traveler, that she had not meant to trespass on my Lord's lands or offend any local customs. But the man said Rose had been caught in public, without a male escort and indecently dressed. It seems she had broken quite a number of laws, the punishment for most of which was death." She pauses, lowering her eyes uncomfortably. "Rose tried to convince the man that she was an emissary from a distant world, that to harm her would be to incur the wrath of her powerful leaders. He didn't seem convinced, but several days later he came again and told her that she had been summoned to the castle."

His dove slowly rises, and steps towards the dais. She grips at the soft, rich material of her skirts, and only then does he notice that tonight she wears the traditional dress instead of the loose trousers she favors. Her outfit is orange with accents of peach and gold. Her ears sparkle with amber teardrops, matched by a chain of similar stones looped about her neck. Yet more of the murky, coral colored jewels lay in a net over her veil, keeping if fast over her golden hair. The scent of jasmine and cinnamon fills his nostrils, and he recognizes with pleasure the scent she has worn on so many previous nights. Pulling her skirts aside she dips gracefully to her knees before him, in a formal curtsy.

"Rose found herself shuffled into a room with many other women. They were chattering furiously in Arabic, but they all went deadly silent, staring at her, as she entered the room. She was cleaned and dressed, and even then none would talk to her. She tried to talk to some of the large eunuch guards, but they were silent as stone. She wasn't even sure if they were all just ignoring her, or if the few foreign phrases she had picked up since her arrival were so badly spoken that they just didn't understand her."

She stops. Her head is bowed, her voice is soft. She is the picture of an obedient wife. The very image of what a docile and beautiful maid should be. "My Lord," her voice wavers, and she visibly steadies herself. "I…I was brought into this chamber, and I bowed here before my Lord, and you offered me food and drink and asked that I tell you the tale of how I came into your kingdom." She swallows heavily, looking up at him with eyes full of sadness and trepidation and…trust…and he must physically restrain himself so as to not to reach out and caress the roundness of her cheek in comfort, "And so my Lord, have I done. I have come to the end of my many stories. My epic is finished."

There are no budding tears in her ebony eyes now. No hidden remorse or fragility. No fear of what he may do, only acceptance of whatever hand fate may extend to her. And yet still, he sees a bright spark of hope. It dances behind her pupils, dances like silver leaves in a windstorm. Nothing in all her long tale, the telling and the living of it, has ever managed to stop that dancing, to douse the stars glowing in her eyes. It was that, he'd like to think, that first made him see past her base exterior. Past her wretched speech and atrocious mannerisms. Made him look deeper to see, what eternal fire could cause her to burn with such light from within.

Her lips quiver, waiting for his next action. Would he claim them as his own? Would he order their luscious color be drained for all eternity? They part slightly, and he thinks of petals. Thinks of rose petals quaking in a heavy breeze. Thinks of heady scents and powerful names and sharp briars that have long since dug themselves into his soul. "And what, my dove," he asks, his own voice teetering on the edge of breaking, "Would you do now?"

She blinks at him; impassive and not confused. He leans forward, his face bare inches from her own. "I do what my Lord wishes," she says with resignation. And of course, what else could be expected? That is, if they were speaking to one another as they had before. Before his native language slipped like sweet scented oils from between her lips. Before the Djinn and the Blue Box and the possibility of other planets. Before she showed him in a thousand nights of tales that different did not necessarily mean 'bad different'.

But it is not before, and he is not that man, and it remains to be seen what kind of man he really is. Remains for her to see, that is. "And if you had the choice of it?" he asks. "To stay amongst my palace, as my beloved wife? To rule by my side, as an equal? To have every whim, every desire of your heart catered to for the rest of your life?" All but one, he thinks, knowing the deception of his own words and patiently awaiting her response.

She pauses, and he sees her thought write itself across her brow. "My Lord," she stutters, bringing to mind their first audience and her tongue-tied nervousness, "My Lord I do not wish to appear ungrateful. Far from it! My Lord has been so good to me, but…" Her head raises in pride and he knows her answer. Knew it before he asked. Knew that if she could answer any other way, then she would not have been the woman he has come to know. The woman he has come to love. The woman who took a broken man…two broken men…and made them believe in forever. "My Lord," she whispers, "My choice was made long ago."

Without thought or preamble, he slides from his throne to kneel next to her on the carpet. He lifts her milk-white hands from where they rest lotus-style against her thighs and raises each in turn to his own lips. Staring into eyes wide with surprise he thinks for a thousandth time what a treasure she is. What a prize. Too great a boon for any earthly sovereign, his dove. She was never meant to be confined to the base earth beneath their feet. No, her place is among the stars with the gods who abide there…and one in particular. Gently nudging her fingers open, he presses the small metal object into her hand. It is a single point of cool contact, encased between their heated palms. It's tiny teeth tickle at their flesh and he thinks of his guards bringing it to him, so many moons ago. Bringing it with a pile of foreign clothing and a story strange beyond all telling; a story of a beautiful woman who appeared out of a great flash of light, wearing it about her neck as if it were her most prized possession.

"No, Rose," he says, his heart in his voice and his eyes and his actions. "I believe you have yet one more tale to tell, and that I may have some small part to play."

~?~?~?~?~?~?~

He had been warned repeatedly about this man.

The other sheiks had politely welcomed him into their homes, offered him tea and cakes, and then just as politely refused all his entreaties. They were not interested in an alliance, not with strangers from worlds afar. Not with people who feasted on pork and permitted their women to walk about without their heads uncovered. No, they were universally, if respectfully, adamant in their refusals, but each was perfectly willing to help him on his way. He had been provided with camels, tents, guides, slave women (which he had honorably declined, goodness knows what he'd do with them) and fine gifts to be delivered to his rulers upon his return to their lands. Though the sultans were uninterested in alliance, they saw no gain in making enemies…even one so far away as Fabletown.

Each, too, had warned him of the potential pitfalls of travel through their lands. Such dangers, it seemed, included the man he was now being sheparded into the presence of. He had strange ways, they said, and strange views on women. None wished to send their daughters to him. He was, apparently, unmarriageable, though none could be persuaded to say exactly why. He was dangerous, they said, apt to have a man killed for saying the wrong thing in his presence. And so, King Cole had avoided his audience for as long as was humanly possible.

He would have avoided the man entirely, if that had been possible. But a chance, no matter how slim, to forge good relations with the Arabian Nights, the only major realm of the Homelands still untouched by the Adversary, could not be ignored. If the Fables ever hoped to reclaim their birthrights, they would need the assistance of these strange, desert dwelling peoples. To date, he had met with all the other rulers and been disappointed, and now it was necessary to parlay with the greatest of them, despite his spotted reputation.

He shuffled into the audience chamber on slippered feet. He kept his head bowed out of deference, yet subtly looked about the room out of the corner of his eyes. It was richly appointed. Every surface seemed decked with either gold or marble or silk. Intricately woven carpets lined the floor wherever he stepped. They depicted scenes from great myths: the voyages of Sinbad, the triumph of Aladdin. He approached the raised platform where the Sultan sat in a high backed throne painted with gold leaf. At his right hand knelt a slave woman in a sumptuous gown. Cole noticed that, unlike the other women he had seen around this palace and others, she did not lower her gaze at his approach, but rather stared appraisingly at him with an eager expression.

Arriving at his destination, Cole bent horizontal at the waist (or as much as his portly frame would allow, at any rate). Addressing the Sultan in his well practiced and accented Arabic, he thanked the great and powerful leader of this land for taking this time to so honor the lowly ambassador of Fabletown. He had gifts too, of course, gold and scented oils. He laid these at the Sultan's feet before backing several steps away.

"I welcome Fabletown's representative," came the ruler's deep and commanding voice. "Please," he said, drawing Cole's eyes up to his own for the first time and waving at the pile of cushions set out between them. "Make yourself comfortable."

Cole found himself a spot on the floor and opened his mouth to begin his proposal. "Have you met my dove?" the Sultan interrupted before he could even get a word out. He lifted a palm in indication of the beautiful woman crouched beside him. He smiled lovingly down at her. "Rose," he intoned, "This is Ambassador Cole. He comes from a world that sounds not much unlike your own."

Cole took a second, more penetrating look at the girl. There was a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Hello," she said, in perfect English. "Nice ta' meet you."

Cole stuttered some sort of a reply, caught for a moment between translations. "I…" he sputtered out eventually, "You…you sound British."

Her eyes, if possible, glowed even more brightly at that. "Yeah," she replied, "That's 'cause I am."

"Ambassador," the Sultan broke in, "I have heard all about your proposal from my subordinates, and I would like now to give you my assessment." Cole's heart fell. This had been his last hope. He did not know what he would do if he had to return to Fabletown and face the mayor and his new deputy with the news that his costly mission to the lands of Arabian Nights was all for naught. "For many centuries now my people and those of the surrounding sheikdoms have remained isolated from the worlds beyond. We have determined that such a policy of inaction would keep our lands from falling to the same fate as they. We have hidden from the great empire and we have prospered." He turned to pass his gaze over his lovely companion. "But I know that we cannot hide, cannot remain apart forever. Nor, unlike my fellow rulers, am I afraid of the strange traditions and customs of your people. In the end, our ways are not so much different and we are more alike than I think even we know. Ultimately, we must either join as one to defeat our common foe, or else be slowly and separately dissected. Our worlds cannot afford to remain detached any longer. We accept Fabletown's offer of friendship and alliance, provided that they offer the same in return…and one special favor to me alone."

Cole's mouth dropped open and he had to hurriedly pull it into its proper spot. "My lord Sultan," he said, beginning his tirade of thanks and blessings, "You will not be disappointed with this arrangement. I swear it on my life. Whatever it is you desire, if it is in Fabletown's power to give, you shall have it."

"Good," the Sultan replied, still not looking at Cole. He set his hand upon the young woman's head, and she turned affectionately into his touch. "My dove," he said softly, "Is not mine to have or to hold. She never was. And as such, I wish to see her returned to her proper place. To the Djinn of your world, assuming," he admonished her, although ostensibly speaking to Cole, "That the places are one and the same." She nodded slightly, silently, allowing her cheek to rub against the weathered flesh of his palm. He turned from her then and focused on his guest. "Will you, Ambassador, take my lady Rose back with you to your masters and this city of New York."

The girl distracted them both with her joyous cry at hearing that name. Her hands raised to her neck, brushing against a tiny key hanging from a silk choker. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears of happiness.

"Of course, my lord Sultan," Cole replied, still staring curiously at the strange girl. For the first time he noticed the pale cast of her skin. It was something he had not seen since before he first flew to Baghdad on his mission. Her hair too, beneath her transparent veil, is blonde, a color all but unknown in these sun drenched lands. "Is there not something else you might ask?"

"No," he said, standing and raising the girl named Rose to stand beside him. "There is no greater boon I could wish for than to see my dove happy." He smiles, and Cole can see, it is all for her. "And there is no greater gift I could bestow upon your world than she."

The papers are drawn up post-haste and executed. Cole, who had become used to the slow turning of the wheels of justice in this world (even when liberally greased with abundant bribes), is shocked to see how quickly such matters may progress when there is the effect of real power behind them. The Sultan signed with a flourish, thanked Cole again for his assistance, and, with a last chaste kiss upon her blushing cheek, placed the girl's hand in his. "Take care of her," he said, his dark eyes still all on the blonde haired beauty, "For if you fail to protect her, it is not my wrath which shall rain down upon your head." Cole thought to question this strange pronouncement, but the two of them were already being shoed from the room and back to his quarters.

They exited the great chamber into the wide hall beyond. Cole shook his head, caught between amusement and amazement at what had just happened. The girl was all but bouncing at his side. Her hand swung where it was gripped in his own. She happily hummed an unfamiliar tune. "Do you really live in New York," she asked him, breathlessly in English. "Is it New York with or without zeppelins? What time period? Oh! And do you know anything about the Sycorax or cybermen or little fat monsters?" He stared at her as she rattled on seemingly without object, and utterly oblivious to his complete bewilderment.

Suddenly, a woman in soft flowing robes and silken slippers ran up to them in the hall, her eunuch guard following close behind her. "My Lady Rose!" she gasped in Arabic. The woman dropped to her knees before the blonde at his side, who immediately crouched down to join the supplicating attendant. The bowing woman's guard looked on in confusion, clearly uncertain of what to do in this situation.

"None of that now," Rose admonished, gripping the strange woman's satin soft hands in her own and raising her to her feet. "I won't have any of that 'Lady Rose' nonsense. Not in the bridal chambers and not here either." She reached a hand up under the woman's veil and wiped an errant tear from her cheek. "You and I are friends, Cher, and I wouldn't have it any other way."

"But my Lady, I must thank you," she asserted fervently.

"Thank _me_," Rose asked incredulous. "For what? Who's the one who loaned me her face paints, hmmm? Who helped me learn all those tricky conjugations? No Cher, it's I who must thank you."

"My Lady is too kind," the woman said, ducking her head modestly, before raising expressive eyes to meet her friend's. "But I must thank you for entertaining my Lord all these nights. Always, it has been my lot to follow you to his chambers, and I have gained a thousand more nights of peace then was my natural right to have." She smiled beatifically. "Life in the bridal chambers may not be much, but it is life, and I do thank you. I thank you with all of my heart." The woman's brow darkened suddenly. "I pray that my charms may prove to be a fraction of your own, so that I may have some short esteem in our Lord's eyes."

Rose, smiled sadly at the woman - barely more than a girl, really - and hugged her sharply to her breast. Pushing back from the embrace, she reached out with one finger and lifted the scared child's chin. With a final honest look into her friend's eyes, she leaned in close to whisper in her ear. "He likes stories," she said, throwing in a meaningful wink.

The young girl nodded her understanding, and then following an impatient motion from her guard, pattered off down the hallway with many a reluctant look back over her shoulder.

"A friend of yours?" he asked Rose, switching to English after the girl has disappeared behind a far doorway. Rose nodded, still looking after where her friend had been. "Cher?" he queried her further, with an incredulously arched eyebrow.

Rose smiled. "'S just a nickname. She reminds me a bit of a friend I used to have back home. Shireen, we used to call her that, too." A crinkle marred her brow with thought as she added, "It's kinda sad, I never did get around to pronouncing her full name right." Then, finally, she turned away from the seemingly endless halls she was leaving behind, and grabbed for his proffered arm, ready to face whatever came next.


	24. Chapter 24

"You ready?"

"I'm ready."

"You sure?"

"Sure as I'll ever be."

"Cause if you're not sure, we can always wait a bit-"

"Knock it off spaceman and open that door!"

The Doctor smiled hugely. "Your wish is my command," he announced, and opened the TARDIS door with a flourish.

Not even pausing to watch her step, Donna raced from the control room and out into the cool shade and garbage funk of a typical big city alley. Sliding to a stop on pavement coated with…she'd prefer not to think of what…she looked around herself in confusion. Advancing slowly to the end of the alleyway, she peaked out into the bright light of what appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be a normal, bustling city street. Blinking, she slipped out onto the sidewalk and shaded her eyes. Looking up between the towering buildings, she could vaguely make out the distinctive outline of the Empire State Building in the distance.

"New York!" she squawked, sounding, in her dismay, not entirely unlike the natives of that very city.

"City that never sleeps," enthused the Doctor, ranging up beside her. "Good old New York City, early twenty-first century…absolutely capital time for a visit!"

She turned the full force of her Irish temper on him. "Thought you said we were havin' an adventure!"

"We are," he said, smiling like the cat who's caught the canary at last. "I just never said where."

"Yeah, but I thought…" Donna let her statement die a slow death. It was very clear what she had thought. That she would be running out onto the surface of another planet, and he had done absolutely nothing to disabuse her of this notion. Alien vistas, alien shopping, _aliens_…or, at the very least, an alien time complete with strange customs and modes of dress. But here she was on her own planet, in her own time period. What exactly was the Doctor playing at?

Reaching into his pocket he produced the little black rectangle she recognized as the Psychic Paper. Flipping it open, he held it out towards her. Written across it in a fine flowing script read:

_**In light of your exemplary service,**_

_**Fabletown wishes to bestow a gift .**_

"Oh," said Donna, suddenly understanding. She glanced around her with more attention to detail. Across the street from them was a shoe store with the name "The Glass Slipper Shoes" emblazoned in sky blue above the door. Next to it was a somewhat disreputable looking tavern with an almost medieval appearance to its façade. Beyond, she could see the towering stories and the wrought iron gate of the Woodlands apartments. The streets were packed. Cars trundled up and down, with messengers on bikes weaving precariously between them. People passed each other with friendly waves, the men tipping their hats to ladies. A cat went streaking past the mouth of the alleyway, a bright red feather clasped in its jaws.

"Looks like they cleaned the place up," Donna noted needlessly.

"Yep," the Doctor enthusiastically agreed. "Just look at it, the pluck of them all! Humans! You just have to love them. Throw them a curve ball and they pick it right back up. Burn their homes down and they rebuild it. For all the Time Lords did with their genius and high technology, they'd be hard pressed to outdo humans for sheer, unabashed determination."

He continued on in the same manner, waxing poetic on his favorite inferior species. Donna, having heard it all before, had long since tuned him out. Besides, she saw a familiar face making his way towards them from across the street. "Cole!" she cried, waving gleefully. "How's the mayoring business?"

He came up to the two of them, smiling from behind his white handlebar moustache. "Terrible, actually. I got un-elected."

"Oh?" said the Doctor while shaking his hand. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"No matter," Cole went on, beaming a smile at both of them. "I've got a new position, now: Ambassador and chief liaison to the Arabian Nights."

"I guess that would explain the outfit," said Donna, indicating his incongruous robe and huge turban.

"Hmmmm…." He replied, raising a steadying hand to the towering cloth wrapped about his head. "Well, when in Rome. Mind you, I could probably take it off now that I'm back in Fabletown, but I'm keeping up appearances for my guests. Look!" he said, waving behind him. Donna finally noticed the crowd of Middle Eastern looking people following in Cole's wake. There were men dressed much the same as he was, in outfits made more for survival in the desert sands than for a New York City corner. The women stood out even more, the garishly bright colors of their skimpy outfits drawing the eyes of every many in gazing distance. All were talking and laughing loudly amongst themselves in Arabic, as if they were out for a festival or a picnic.

One woman in particular stood out from the rest. She walked with a steady confidence that belied her status as a mere companion to the men in the group. Where all the others females wore veils upon their heads, her bright blonde hair hung in free waves about her shoulders. Her hand rested gracefully on the arm of a tall man with a dark beard. He was leaning towards her and speaking softly, but she wasn't paying any attention to him. She was looking at Donna.

Donna blinked in surprise, then turned to the Doctor to see what he thought of this development, and immediately corrected her assumption. No, the girl was clearly looking at him. She could tell because of the shocked look of near desperate recognition that was plastered all over his face. "Doctor?" she asked quietly, wondering what could have affected him so.

"_Rose_?" he croaked, attending to Donna's question not at all, but it was all the explanation she required.

From their earliest meeting, Donna knew that the Doctor had another woman in his life. A discarded tank top, a name, a location (decidedly not dead)…these things had come later, but she hadn't needed this eventual evidence to see what was right in front of her face. Men like the Doctor didn't show emotion over a passing acquaintance, at least, not the kind that swamped the Doctor's features when she'd first appeared on the TARDIS in all her wedding gown clad glory. Men like the Doctor, who held the power to destroy all existence in the palm of their hand, didn't survive long without a balancing force to temper their emotions. Men like the Doctor, who never stayed in one place any longer than was absolutely necessary, needed a safe place to put their heart…a place that could travel with them. And Donna knew, from her earliest travels amongst the stars, that though she could make an adequate substitute for the absent person the Doctor's life, she was never quite all that. All that he wanted, all that he _needed_. No, that honor, that _responsibility_, if she were honest with herself, belonged to another.

She had been a companion, this much Donna had deduced on her own. A friend. A friend like Martha, only more so, because when the Doctor spoke of Martha it was always with a slight air of discomfort. As if Martha were a stack of perfectly serviceable mattresses with a tiny pea wedged at their bottom. He didn't speak of Rose at all. Not unless he was pressed, and even then he spoke in short, declarative sentences, as if she were a trial that must be endured and gotten past as quickly as base explanation would allow. Her name is Rose. She's with her family. Still lost. And therein lay the sum total of what the Doctor had verbally told Donna about the girl.

How many times had she and the Doctor been wandering the markets on some far planet, in some distant time, and he had swung about, an unidentifiable, purple, scab covered fruit balanced on his palm, and every muscle poised to begin some rapturous tale of its origins or its medical properties or what have you; only to come to a standstill blinking at Donna, as if she were the last person in the universe he expected to see hovering in his shadow. He always smiled disarmingly afterwards, and went on with his explanation, proving to Donna that she was his friend, that she was needed, and that he did care for her greatly. But he could never hide that first reaction; the brief, yet undeniable, disappointment that she was not who he wanted her to be. So, Donna always knew that Rose - the mysterious, still lost Rose - had been a very, _very_ special friend indeed; and never once attempted to step into her place.

What Donna hadn't realized, not until this very moment, was that the Doctor had been in love with her.

You'd think that sort of thing would be obvious, especially between two partners as close as they had become, but you'd be wrong. Oh, she could blame it on the Doctor being an alien, but when it came down to it, he really was just like a regular human bloke in many ways. He didn't like to talk about himself or his past, he liked to pretend he didn't have things like feelings and didn't experience pain. If you handed him a pint and plopped him down at a pub in front of a football match you'd never tell him apart from the other males populating the establishment. No, it's not that the signs hadn't been there, or even that she'd misread them, it was merely that the possibility of the Doctor being in love with _anyone_ had seemed so remote, so unbelievably unlikely, that it had never actually occurred to her. But there it was. Well, there he was, anyway; looking for all the world like…well…he was looking. Looking at her. The blonde in the ridiculous pink and yellow slave-girl costume. Seriously, she was dressed up just like the bird in that old American television program about the astronaut who kept a genie locked inside a bottle in his apartment. It was enough to make any man stare, but it shouldn't be enough to make to Doctor look twice.

He looked.

He looked, and Rose looked back, her hand sliding forgotten from its perch on her attendant's arm. Donna wasn't sure which of them moved first. It didn't matter, the Doctor met the girl's flying leap halfway. Swinging her around like she was a little child. Her head fell back and laughter came tumbling, bell like from her throat. The Doctor, too, was laughing, the sound of it muffled by her hair as it flew in his face and his hands clasped in a death grip around her waist. The two swayed together for a moment, as if to the strains of a concert band that played only for them.

"Well, would'ja look at that." Donna prodded the former mayor lightly in the side with a well placed elbow, and directed his attention with a tip of her head to the enthusiastically embracing couple before them. She watched a knowing smile play beneath his wintry moustache as he caught sight of the two. She followed his gaze and couldn't help but smile herself at the awestruck joy she saw plastered all over her friend's face. He was looking out over the strange girl's shoulder, his arms still grasped desperately about her middle. He stayed that way only a moment, his face half turned into her hair, before pushing back. He stumbled sideways in his haste, bringing the two of them into profile. Grasping her shoulders in a vise-grip, he raked her face with his eyes in utter disbelief. Then closing them, he leaned forward until his brow rested gently against hers, their lips bare centimeters apart. For a moment, Donna was absolutely certain (and she'd had enough experience in such matters by this time to consider herself an expert) time stood still. Or rather, time held its breath, quivering in anticipation.

Then he pulled away, beaming for all he was worth, and very obviously on the point of breaking into some nonsensical tirade about goodness knew what. His obvious surprise. The difficulties of interdimensional travel. The fact that Rose was dressed up like a harem girl. The whole fairy-tale-folk-living-in-New-York thing, which he'd certainly found surprising. The inherent time distortion issues of the alternate universes. Questions about how her mum was doing.

In an act which could only be described as merciful, Rose slid her hands up his lapels to cup behind his neck and drag his head down to her own. Their lips crashed together and the Doctor, his arms backpedaling wildly and his hair all askew, could not have appeared more off balance. It looked for an instant as though he was about fall backwards into the street and lose precious contact with the girl before him, but Rose held tight and in a moment, the gyrations stopped. The Doctor's hands lowered themselves slowly to his sides. His shoulders drooped with thankful release as he leaned into the kiss, and his eyes slid shut. It was as though a kite string, pulled taut for so long, had been suddenly severed; leaving the broken end to hang limp in the hand of its guide. With great delicacy, the Doctor reached his hands around Rose's back, pressed splayed and trembling fingers between her shoulder blades and into the dip above her hipbones, and pulled her towards him.

"There yah go," Donna proclaimed to no one in particular, "Big, damn, happy, fairy tale ending. Who says it doesn't happen in real life?"

"Oh, I don't know," Cole said, pondering. "Seems to be missing something to me."

Donna turned her full, indignant attention on the older man, and placed her hands upon her hips in a challenging manner. "And just what, exactly, could that," she angrily waved one hand towards where the Doctor remained breathlessly lip-locked with his pretty blonde companion, "Be missing? Tell me that mister _forme_r-mayor man." The tone of her voice heightened with the mock ferocity of her inquiry.

Cole cleared his throat loudly, and thumped dramatically at his chest with his fist. Then, clasping his hands behind his back and straightening his shoulders, he turned his benevolent smile upon the conglomeration of Fables and aliens and other people surrounding them on all sides and made a declaration in his most kingly manner of address.

"And they lived happily ever after."

~?~?~?~?~?~

_Once upon a time there was a beautiful young woman who lived alone with her mother. They were very poor, but they loved one another and so they were happy. The girl worked very hard so that she and her mother could afford to live in their dilapidated lodgings, but she dreamed that one day a handsome prince would come on a strapping white horse to sweep her off her feet and rescue her from her life of servitude. Her mother told her not to think such foolish things; that she was not a princess in some fairly tale, but just a common woman working for a living wage. She could not, however, stop the girl from dreaming. After all, her dreams were all she had. _

_Then one day, when she least expected it, a man did come. He wasn't a prince, and no one would have called him charming. He didn't have a horse either, but the girl was not the type to look such matters in the mouth. And, as her mother had so often pointed out, it's not as though she were a princess. _

_The strange man brought with him magic from a distant realm, magic that saved the girl from the terrible danger which threatened to engulf her. And afterwards, the man saved the girl's mother, and her friends, and all the people of the girl's home. Over and over he saved them, saved them all. The people rejoiced, but knew nothing of their mysterious benefactor. Then the hero swept the girl away to a far off place and saved her yet again, this time from the insipid future she feared far more than the dark forces which had so recently imperiled her. Her mother wept to see her daughter go. _

_What the story doesn't tell - what the stories never bother to tell - is that the girl saved the hero, and that, in truth, took considerably more effort._


End file.
